Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Lancashire Quarter Sessions Bill [Lords],

Read the Third time, and passed, without Amendment.

Wolverhampton Corporation Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Bethlem Hospital Bill [Lords],

Greenock and Port Glasgow Tramways Company Bill [Lords],

Read a Second time, and committed.

Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways (Trolley Vehicles, etc.) Bill [Lords],

Sheffield Corporation Bill [Lords],

To be read a Second time upon Thursday.

Stretford and District Electricity Board Bill [Lords],

Wey Valley Water Bill [Lords],

York Town and Blackwater Gas and Electricity Bill [Lords],

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — INDIA.

DISTURBANCE, CALCUTTA.

Mr. DAY: 1.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has now received a Report regarding the firing on the railway strikers in Calcutta on 28th March, last; and will he give the House the particulars?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Earl Winterton): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Bow and Bromley (Mr. Lansbury) on 17th May.
My Noble Friend has received only the briefest summary of the contents of the Report and, in view of the misunderstandings that have already been caused by partial publications in this case, he considers it inadvisable to make any further statement until the full Report has been received, together with the views of the Government of Bengal and the Government of India. The hon. Member has probably seen the communiqué issued by the Government of Bengal in which they say that endeavour will be made to collect as early as possible the materials required for a proper decision in these cases but that this will necessarily take some time.

Mr. THURTLE: When does the Noble Lord expect to receive these Reports?

Earl WINTERTON: I cannot even give an approximate date. They will be received as soon as the two Governments concerned have given them consideration.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: Considering the very grave importance of this question, and that it is about two months since we first asked the question, would it be possible for the Noble Lord, apart from the views of the Government, to obtain and publish the exact wording of the magistrate's judgment?

Earl WINTERTON: No. For the reason I have already stated in reply to questions, it would be wrong to make any comment on what has occurred until the Report has been considered by these two Governments and my Noble Friend. I must ask hon. Members to exercise the same discretion in the matter as they would in the case of a matter occurring in this country which is sub judice.

Mr. W. THORNE: Is there any machinery to settle disputes, as in this country?

Earl WINTERTON: That is a very wide question which really does not arise out of this question. I answered a question on that point last week.

COTTON PRODUCTION.

Mr. HANNON: 4.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether be can present to the House a statement showing the yield of the Indian cotton crop for the season 1927–28; if the prices
compared favourably with preceding years; and if the development of experimental effort in Indian cotton production has been followed by profitable results?

Earl WINTERTON: As the reply contains a number of figures I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, have it circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. HANNON: Is everything possible being done by the Government of India to foster scientific development of the cotton crop?

Earl WINTERTON: It is not really a matter for the Government of India, but for the Provincial Governments. There has been a good deal done in recent years, which has yielded good results, but the fall in the world's price of cotton in recent years has, of course, been prejudicial to the Indian grower.

Following is the reply:

The appended statement gives the latest Government estimate (April, 1928) of the cotton crop of India in 1927–28. There was a heavy fall in price during 1926–27 followed by a partial recovery in 1927–28. The latest report of the Indian Central Cotton Committee states that such improved cottons as Surat 1027 are in good and regular demand by Indian mills.

Provinces and States.
(April, 1928) 1927–28
(April, 1928)1926–27



(1,000 tons.)
(1,000 tons.)


Punjab*
3,310
3,135


United Provinces*
2,762
2,648


Central Provinces and Berar*
697
803


Bombay*
586
450


Bihar and Orissa
427
477


North West Frontier Province
232
230


Bengal
23
32


Delhi
19
15


Ajmer Merwara
14
6


Central India
284
†335


Gwalior
176
273


Rajputana
224
214


Hyderabad
81
64


Baroda
21
20


Mysore
‡
§



8,856
†8,702


* Including Indian States.
‡500 tons.


†Revised.
§200 tons.

DEPRESSED CLASSES.

Mr. WELLOCK: 2.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India what, if any, special measures have been taken by the Government of India to improve the condition of the depressed classes in India during the last five years?

Earl WINTERTON: I think the best answer I can give to the hon. Member's question is to send him a copy of the OFFICIAL REPORT of a Debate on this matter in the Legislative Assembly of 23rd February last, and to invite his attention particularly to the two speeches of the Government spokesman on pages 688 and 721.

GAMBLING ACT (BURMA).

Mr. WALTER BAKER: 5.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that, despite the illegality of gambling in Burma, such gambling has been practised on a large scale; that licences for gambling booths have been issued to the highest bidders; and that forced assessments, the money for which was raised by this method, to the Rangoon University Endowment Fund were made in five districts, despite the refusal of the English District Commissioners to countenance such illegal methods of raising revenue; and whether he will call for a full report and place it in the Library?

Earl WINTERTON: The information in the possession of my Noble Friend is to the effect that, while irregularities did occur in a very few districts, steps were taken by the Government of Burma to ensure strict compliance with the provisions of the Gambling Act immediately the matter came to their notice. In the circumstances, my Noble Friend does not think it necessary to call for a report, especially as the matter has already been fully debated in the Burma Legislative Council.

Mr. BAKER: Will the Noble Lord look into the matter further if I send him newspaper cuttings which appear to prove that large sums of money were in fact raised by this means?

Earl WINTERTON: I am well aware of the articles which appeared in a certain paper. My Noble Friend prefers to base his decision upon the opinion of the Government of Burma which is
stated in the Debate which took place in the Burma Legislative Council. If the hon. Member will read the Debate, and if he wishes to ask me any further question on the matter, I shall be glad to satisfy him that these allegations are quite unfounded.

Mr. BAKER: Does the Noble Lord deny the accuracy of the figures that were published as to the receipts raised in this way?

Earl WINTERTON: It is a well-known fact that Ministers are not concerned with figures published in the Press. I understand it is out of order to ask questions based on Press reports. My Noble Friend satisfied himself that the allegations are unfounded and were disposed of in the Debate that took place in the Burma Legislative Council.

BENGAL CRIMINAL. LAW AMENDMENT ACT.

Mr. THURTLE: 6.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India how many atrests, if any, have been made under the Bengal Criminal Ordinance Act during the last six months; and when this Act will expire?

Earl WINTERTON: During the six months ended 15th April—the latest date up to which I have particulars—no arrests were made under the Bengal Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1925. The Act will expire in April, 1930.

Mr. THURTLE: In view of the fact that it appears that if the necessity for this Act ever existed, it has now disappeared, will the Noble Lord consider, as a gesture of faith in the- Indian people, getting it annulled?

Earl WINTERTON: No. The hon. Member, if he is a Member of the House in 1930, can then address a question to me or my successor.

TATA IRON AND STEEL COMPANY.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: 7.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether, in view of the fact that the Tata Iron and Steel Company are receiving an annual cash subsidy on the tonnage of certain products and that manufacturing industries under the control of Tata Sons, Limited, of Bombay, are receiving orders for steel, cement, cloth, etc., in preference to British tenderers, from various Departments of
the Government of India and Government-controlled railways and mines, he will inform the House if the Government in India have assured themselves that this firm are observing a fair-wage standard and afford general fair treatment to their employés?

Earl WINTERTON: My Noble Friend has no recent information regarding labour conditions at Jamshedpur, but it appears from the Tariff Board Report of December, 1926, that they were at that time quite satisfactory.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: Has the Noble Lord not seen an emphatic and disquieting pronouncement made in this country last week that this firm are known to be the worst employers in the world, and would not the manufacturers of this country expect reliable information as to whether that pronouncement by a member of the Simon Commission is true or untrue?

Mr. HANNON: Was the hon. Member opposite himself connected with the firm, and at that time was the Fair Wages Clause to which he alludes in operation?

Earl WINTERTON: With regard to the question of the hon. Member opposite, I do not feel that it is for me to interfere in the controversy which has arisen between the hon. Member and another right hon. Gentleman who sits on that side of the House.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: I am not referring to a controversy at all. When an emphatic pronouncement is made that this firm is known to be the worst employer in the world—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is trying to put in supplementary form what I struck out of the original question.

MADRAS PORT OFFICERS.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: 3.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he will state for what reason the concessions recommended in the Report of the Lee Commission, which have been extended to other officers of the provincial services of European domicile, have been refused to officers of the Madras port services, seeing that a recommendation has been made to the Government
of India by the Government of Madras in favour of the inclusion of these officers in the list of beneficiaries?

Earl WINTERTON: The Secretary of State in Council, in consultation with the Government of India, carefully considered the case of the Madras port officers, and decided that, while the three selection appointments might be declared superior, it was impossible so to classify the rest of the service. In accordance with the principles stated by me in this House during the discussion on the Civil Services Bill of 1925, and followed consistently in dealing with officers appointed by local governments in India, concessions have ben granted to those who held superior appointments on 1st April, 1924, and the case of the remainder left to be dealt with by the local governments under their own powers.

Mr. WARDLAW-MILNE: May I ask whether we are to understand that out of 12 officers in this service nine are to be ranked as of inferior service, and three only as of superior service, and whether it would not be possible for the Government of India to make some definite rule which would prevent the feelings of hardship which exist at present, as I understand that in other cases of the Madras Government all other services are included.

Earl WINTERTON: My hon. Friend has not understood my reply. I said that there were three selection appointments which might be declared superior, but it was impossible so to classify the rest of the service. It would be impossible to lay down a definite rule throughout India because, as I stated in the House in 1925, in order for a service to rank as superior a post must be roughly equivalent in status and responsibility to the All India Service. It is the duty of the local authorities in consultation with my Noble Friend the Secretary of State to decide on the particular merits of each individual case. The hon. Member's suggestion would really involve injustice rather than justice to the claimants.

MURDERS, SINARANGO.

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in
view of the recent murder by armed natives at Sinarango of two civilian officers (namely Mr. Bell and Mr. Lillies), who were collecting taxes in the district in the service of the Colonial Office, what steps he has taken to prevent a recurrence of these murders; and, in view of the fact that the Colonial Office is ultimately responsible for the conditions under which these officers carry out their duties, will he guarantee adequate protection in future and, in the event of a recurrence of such crimes, adequate compensation paid to the dependants of the victims?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Mr. Amery): A Special Commissioner has been sent to the Protectorate to inquire into and report upon the circumstances of the murders at Sinarango. As to the last part of the question, while it is impossible altogether to eliminate risks in dealing with races of low civilisation, every effort is made to secure that officers are not exposed to avoidable risks and I am confident that the Administration concerned will be prepared in any case where an officer loses his life in the course of his duty to consider sympathetically an appeal for a compassionate grant where there is a dependant in necessitous circumstances.

Mr. BROWN: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why the Colonial Office wrote to the guardian of the late Mr. Lillies saying these murders were according to native custom?

Mr. AMERY: I do not think that quite represents what was said.

SIERRA LEONE (SLAVERY).

Mr. W. BAKER: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has yet received the Report of the Governor of Sierra Leone as to the bearing of Part VII of the Protectorate Native Law Ordinance upon slavery in that Protectorate?

Mr. AMERY: No, Sir; but I will ask the Governor whether it is yet possible for him to furnish it.

Mr. BAKER: The last question was answered about 20th February. Should not the right hon. Gentleman have heard by now?

Mr. AMERY: I think my letter to the Governor went by the next mail.

DEAD SEA SALTS CONCESSION.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether there have been any further developments with regard to the Dead Sea salts concessions?

Mr. AMERY: The results of the negotiations with Major Tulloch and Mr. Novomeysky are still under examination by the Palestine and Transjordan Governments.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that eight years have lapsed since this question was taken up in practical form, and that the action he is taking is against the interests of 90 per cent. of the inhabitants of Transjordan and Palestine?

Mr. AMERY: No, Sir.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any of the groups of applicants for the Dead Sea concession were officially required to state their financial backing or financial guarantees, or both, at any stage before or during the examination for the final tenders sent in, and before any selection in principle was arrived at; and whether any group was passed over on the ground, officially stated, of insufficient financial backing?

Mr. AMERY: Yes, Sir. At a time when the terms offered in one of the applications was thought to be the most favourable to the Palestine and Transjordan Governments of those which had then been submitted, the group which had made that application was asked by the Crown Agents to discuss the matter further with a view to clearing up certain doubtful points, including questions of finance, arising out of its application. The financial guarantees arranged by this group were subsequently withdrawn and its application was, in consequence, not accepted.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Has the right hon. Gentleman any satisfactory financial guarantees?

Mr. AMERY: When I have satisfactory guarantees and satisfactory conditions, a contract will be made.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir FREDERICK HALL: Will the right hon. Gentleman take care to satisfy himself that there shall be no subletting of this contract and that those with whom he makes the contract have satisfactory financial backing?

Mr. AMERY: I will keep that in mind.

Mr. THURTLE: Are we to understand that the final authority in these matters then, is himself, and not the Palestine Government?

Mr. AMERY: The position is the same as in the case of any Colonial administration. The matter is one, in the first instance, for the local Government to decide. The local Government act under the general supervision and control of this House.

Sir F. HALL: Can my right hon. Friend say whether, if an English group come along; and being satisfied that they are in a financial position to put up the necessary money, he will be prepared to make an agreement with them?

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Can my right hon. Friend say how long he is prepared to endure this state of delay, and is he aware that all this delay is playing into the hands of certain Central European interests?

Mr. AMERY: No, Sir. I am not aware of the last fact, and I certainly wish to terminate the negotiations as soon as possible. I think I have explained to the House before that the tender of Major Tulloch and Mr. Novomeysky was accepted at the time that the tenders were issued. Therefore, if they can provide satisfactory guarantees in every respect as to the manner of working, they will, naturally, have a prior claim over anyone who did not tender at the time.

Colonel HOWARD-BURY: Is it not the case that Major Tulloch gave a power of attorney to Mr. Novomeysky to do what he liked?

Mr. AMERY: I do not think that question arises.

Sir F. HALL: He has not got any money.

TANGANYIKA (BRITISH IMMIGRANTS).

Sir ROBERT THOMAS: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies
whether, in view of the inability of the Tanganyika Government, under the terms of the mandate, to discriminate in favour of British settlers, he will consider granting subsidies to suitable British immigrants?

Mr. AMERY: There are no funds at my disposal from which subsidies could be granted to emigrants to Tanganyika territory.

Sir R. THOMAS: Will the right hon. Gentleman endeavour to get some money from the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

MALTA (CONSTITUTION).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any representations have been made to him to amend the constitution in Marta; and, if so, whether such representations have been considered, and with what result?

Mr. AMERY: Yes, Sir. Representations have been received, and I am now considering them. It is not yet possible for me to say what the decision will be.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman consult the Maltese Senate before reaching any conclusions?

Mr. AMERY: I will consider the matter in all its aspects.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Surely the right hon. Gentleman ought to be able to say whether he is considering the constitution of any part of the British Dominions and so forth, and that at least he would consult with both sections of Parliament before he reached any decision regarding such constitution?

Mr. AMERY: I am glad to see that the hon. Member is the guardian of the interests of the Upper House.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

EMPIRE MARKETING BOARD.

Mr. DAY: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs the amount of money that was spent on Press, poster advertising, and cinema activities,
separately, by the Empire Marketing Board for the 12 months ended to the 31st March, 1928?

Mr. AMERY: The accounts for the 12 months ended the 31st March, 1928, have not yet been closed, but subject to adjustment the expenditure in the financial year 1927-28 for the activities in question is as follows:

£
s.
d


Press advertising
…
79,900
4
10


Poster advertising
…
103,528
9
4


Cinema activities
…
5,747
0
10

Mr. DAY: Do we understand that the balance of 2206,000 has not been spent on any of these three items?

Mr. AMERY: Yes, Sir, but as I pointed out the accounts are not yet closed.

Mr. HANNON: Is not all this expenditure on the advice of the Board, which takes careful consideration of Colonial and home produce?

Mr. AMERY: Oh, yes.

Sir F. HALL: Is it not a fact that these figures are being gone into very carefully by the Estimates Committee at the present time?

Mr. AMERY: That is so.

Sir NICHOLAS GRATTANDOYLE: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether the Empire Marketing Board will consider the possibility of compiling an inventory of the actual and potential resources of the Empire and of the present and future requirements of each part of the Empire, with a view to making available in concise and handy form the information necessary for framing a common economic and trade policy for the Empire?

Mr. AMERY: The Imperial Economic Committee has already examined and reported upon certain of the Empire's food resources, and is now, in pursuance of the conclusions reached at the Imperial Conference, 1926, continuing its activities in a somewhat wider field. The Empire Marketing Board is steadily accumulating information in supplement to that contained in the Committee's Reports; but the preparation of a comprehensive inventory, such as my hon.
Friend suggests, would not be within the scope of the Empire Marketing Board. A good deal of the information indicated by my hon. Friend is also contained in the "Statistical Abstract for the several British Oversea Dominions and Protectorates" published periodically by the Board of Trade.

Sir N. GRATTAN-DOYLE: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether the Empire Marketing Board contemplates making use of films for propaganda and publicity; and, if so, in what way and where it is intended to display them?

Mr. AMERY: The Empire Marketing Board is examining carefully the possible employment of films for the purposes of its work, and has experimented in various directions, but I am not yet in a position to outline its definite plans in this field. A grant from the Empire Marketing Fund has enabled a gallery at the Imperial Institute to be converted for use as a cinema theatre for the purpose, in particular, of the display to school-children of films illustrating the resources of the Empire.

COTTON INDUSTRY, AUSTRALIA.

Mr. HANNON: 22.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he has any information showing the increased acreage of the cotton crop of Queensland during the past five years, and to what extent; how far Australian cotton mills have been able to deal with the local production of raw cotton; and if any financial support is given by the Imperial Government to research and experimental work in relation to cotton-growing in Australia?

Mr. AMERY: I have not in my possession full details which would enable me to answer the first two parts of the question, but the reports available show that there was a decrease in the acreage of the cotton crop in Queensland between 1923 and 1926, which is the last year for which I have official figures. As to the last part of the question, His Majesty's Government has given no direct financial support for the purpose mentioned, but the Empire Cotton Growing Corporation, the funds of which are partly derived from an Imperial grant, is at present contributing £3,000 a year towards the cost of experimental stations in Australia.

SAFEGUARDING OF INDUSTRIES.

Captain WATERHOUSE: 44.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if the Board lays down any rules, or gives any advice, as to the permissibility of evidence to committees considering applications for safeguarding?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Herbert Williams): No, Sir. Section IV of the White Paper lays down that a committee shall have power to determine its own procedure.

Captain WATERHOUSE: In view of the very considerable dissatisfaction that is felt in many quarters about the evidence that has been produced from foreign sources, at these inquiries, will the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of issuing some instructions as to procedure?

Mr. WILLIAMS: I am afraid that I cannot.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: If there is any proposal of that kind, will the Government at the same time consider the necessity of making the safeguarding committees of a judicial character?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is another question.

Captain LODER: 60.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether His Majesty's Customs were consulted by the Committee which investigated the application of the hosiery industry for safeguarding as to the feasibility of differentiating hosiery, chief value cotton, from ether hosiery imports?

Mr. WILLIAMS: I understand that the Committee reached their conclusion in regard to the administrative difficulty of dealing with mixtures of cotton and other materials in the event of a duty being confined to cotton hosiery, primarily as the result of trade evidence. The Customs were consulted informally but they were not asked for a definite expression of their views on this matter, as the Committee for other reasons had reached a conclusion adverse to the applicants.

Captain WATERHOUSE: Does not my hon. Friend think it very unfair that applicants were not given a chance to question the Customs especially in view of
the fact that the first report led them to believe that when they reapplied their application would he successful.

Mr. WILLIAMS: The extent of the informal consultation was that a Customs official telephoned the Secretary of the Committee to inquire how the Committee was progressing, and was told that generally the report was likely to be adverse, but that there was a possibility of a duty on cotton hose and underwear. The Customs official made the comment that such a proposal might require some thinking over. That was the extent of the consultation.

Captain WATERHOUSE: Does not my hon. Friend think that important consultations like these make a really fair hearing quite impossible, and will he bear these conversations in mind when he is considering the request in my earlier question to fix some rules of procedure as to evidence.

Mr. WILLIAMS: There was not a consultation with the Committee. It was merely an informal conversation between the Secretary of the Committee and a Customs official initiated by the Customs official.

Captain WATERHOUSE: Would a learned Judge be allowed to have informal conversations with a witness on an important point?

EIPIRE SETTLEMENT.

Sir R. THOMAS: 19.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs whether he has yet replied to the Canadian Government's proposal for a pioneer settlement scheme to settle 20,000 British families; if so, what was the nature of his reply; and does he see his way to agree to the proposal that the Imperial Government should contribute £300 per family towards the cost of stock, buildings, and equipment?

Mr. AMERY: The hon. Member has no doubt been misled by a misprint or error in a Press telegram, as the scheme to which he refers contemplates the settlement of 2,000 not 20,000 families. My latest information in regard to the scheme from the Dominion authorities is that they are not likely to be in a position to make a definite statement for some time.

Sir R. THOMAS: 34.
asked the Minister of Labour, in view of the need for women in the Dominions, what facilities exist in this country for training female emigrants in agriculture and domestic science?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): A residential centre, giving training in household work, has been established at Market Harborough jointly by the Australian and British Governments, together with a number of bursaries available for domestic science courses at recognised local centres. The Scottish Council of Women's Trades has inaugurated a scheme for placing Glasgow girls on farms in Scotland to learn household work with a view to settlement overseas.
For women who can pay their own fees there are courses in agriculture and domestic science provided by various education authorities; a special oversea settlement course in agriculture and domestic science is provided at Hutton by the Lancashire County Council.

CANADA (BRITISH HIGH COMMISSIONER).

Mr. HURD: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs what will be the functions of the British High Commissioner in Canada; when he will begin his duties; and what will he the consequential changes in the position and duties of the Governor-General of Canada?

Mr. AMERY: It is not possible at pre sent to define in detail the functions which will be performed by the High Commissioner in Canada for. His Majesty's Government in Great Britain, but their general character is indicated in Section VI of the Report of the Committee on Inter-Imperial Relations of the Imperial Conference, 1926 (Cmd. 2768. p. 27). It is proposed that he should enter upon his duties towards the end of the summer. No change will be involved in the position and duties of the Governor-General of Canada. My hon. Friend will remember that the position of Governor-General was defined in Section IV (b) of the Report to which I have already referred.

Mr. HANNON: Are we to assume that the greater part of the time of the High Commissioner will be given to the development of British trade in Canada?

Mr. AMERY: All that interests this Government will come within his purview, and I have no doubt he will give valuable assistance to the Trade Commissioner.

Captain GARRO-JONES: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the salary for this office has yet come before the House for sanction?

Mr. AMERY: Yes, Sir. I think an item of £10,000 covering representation of His Majesty's Government in the Dominions was included in the Estimates.

Mr. HURD: Can my right hon. Friend say whether that means that our Trade Commissioners in Canada will in future be under our High Commissioner in Canada?

Mr. AMERY: I cannot say that the exact relations have been definitely settled, but as I stated in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Moseley (Mr. Hannon), the representative of His Majesty's Government may, no doubt, be able to render valuable assistance.

Mr. HURD: Not necessarily under the High Commissioner?

Mr. AMERY: It does not follow that he will be under him.

Captain CROOKSHANK: To which Department of State in this country will the British High Commissioner in Canada be responsible?

Mr. AMERY: The Dominions Department.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: May we understand that there is to be no change at all with regard to the representation of the Overseas Trade Department?

Mr. AMERY: No, Sir. No change in regard to that.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

LABOURERS, EAST KEAL, LINCOLNSHIRE.

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 23.
asked the Minister of Agriculture how many agricultural labourers were employed in the parish of East Keal, Lincolnshire, on 1st May, 1927, and on 1st May, 1928?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Guinness): The number of workers, regular and casual, employed on agricultural holdings above one acre in extent, as returned by occupiers on 4th June, 1927, in the parish of East Keal, was 25. Information in respect of the current year is not yet available.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are three or four agricultural labourers in that parish who have been thrown out of work because of one landowner having put down many acres of land to grass, and who are not able to find work in the immediate neighbourhood?

Mr. GUINNESS: I am not aware of conditions of that kind.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Will the right hon. Gentleman attempt to ascertain exactly how many agricultural labourers are out of work and cannot find any work, and who are not included in our Unemployment Insurance Scheme?

Mr. GUINNESS: That is really a matter for the Minister of Labour.

ARTIFICIAL MANURES (CREDITS).

Mr. T. WILLIAMS: 24.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether it is intended under the terms of the Agricultural Credits Bill to provide credits to farmers for the purchase of artificial manures?

Mr. GUINNESS: The object of Part II of the Agricultural Credits Bill is to provide a new credit instrument which will enable a farmer to borrow from banks on the security of crops, stock and other agricultural assets belonging to him. Farmers who take advantage of this provision will be able to apply money so borrowed to the purchase of artificial manures.

CREDITS BILL (MORTGAGES).

Major ALAN McLEAN: 26.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been drawn to the uneasiness which prevails among certain mortgagors of agricultural holdings in view of the possibility that existing mortgages may be called in because of the fear that the security may be diminished through the operation of Part II of the Agricultural Credits Bill; and what action he proposes to take in the matter?

Mr. GUINNESS: Yes, Sir. Although I believe this feeling is to a large extent not warranted, I am anxious to allay any uneasiness in the minds of mortgagors, and I therefore propose to move an Amendment to Clause 8 (5) so as to limit its operation to mortgages contracted after the passing of the Bill. This will ensure that in respect of existing mortgages the mortgagees' interest in growing crops will remain unaltered.

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: Has the right hon. Gentleman seen the statements by Members of the House of Commons that mortgages are already being called in in consequence of the Bill?

Mr. GUINNESS: It is exactly on that point that this question has been asked, and it is to meet that point that I have given this answer.

Mr. ALEXANDER: It does not meet it.

INCOME TAX ASSESSMENT.

Mr. BROAD: 59.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the gross amount of income derived from the ownership of agricultural land as returned for income tax assessment for the years ending in April, 1914 and 1928?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Arthur Michael Samuel): The statistics collected in respect of the Income Tax Schedule A which is charged on income arising from the ownership of lands and buildings do not distinguish agricultural land. The only information available is the Income Tax, Schedule A assessment on all lands, whether used for agricultural purposes or not, and the hon. Member will find this information in the Tables of the Annual Reports of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue devoted to the Income Tax, Schedule A.

Mr. BROAD: 61.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the gross amount of income derived from the occupation of land for agricultural, horticultural, and similar purposes as returned for income tax assessment for the years ending in April, 1914 and 1928, respectively?

Mr. SAMUEL: Profits derived from the occupation of land in question are generally assessed to Income Tax under Schedule B of the Income Tax Acts on
a conventional basis that is related to the annual value of the land. For 1913–14 the profits were assumed to be one-third of the annual value; for 1925–26 they were assumed to be equal to the annual value. The hon. Member will find particulars of the Schedule B assessments for 1913–14 in Table 105 of the 58th Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue (Command Paper No. 8116) and for 1925–26 (the last year for which figures are available) in Table 53 of the 70th Report of the Commissioners (Command Paper No. 2989). As an alternative to assessment under Schedule B, a person occupying lands for the purpose of husbandry only may elect to be assessed under Schedule D by reference to his actual profits in the same way as a trader is assessed in respect of profits arising from a trade. Statistics of Schedule D assessments so made upon farmers have not been collected since 1919–20. The particulars for that year and previous years are contained in the 64th Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue (Command Paper No. 1436).

GOVERNMENT PURCHASES (COOKING UTENSILS).

Mr. HANNON: 27.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, as representing the First Commissioner of Works whether he is aware that recent tenders by British contractors for copper and steel cooking utensils have been refused and the order given to a foreign firm; and, if so, whether he will explain why this course has been followed, in view of the injury caused to British contractors who are on the King's Roll by placing orders with their competitors abroad?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Lieut.-Colonel Sir Vivian Henderson): I understand a small order was recently placed for copper and steel cooking utensils with a British firm who are on the King's Roll. The goods are, however, of French manufacture and were selected after careful inquiry as being the most suitable for the purpose for which they are required.

Mr. HANNON: Will the hon. and gallant Member tell the House that it is the policy of the First Commissioner
of Works, generally speaking, to give preference to British produce in the giving of Government contracts?

Sir V. HENDERSON: Yes, Sir, most certainly.

Mr. W. THORNE: What is the good of the Government yapping about encouraging British trade, and then giving orders to foreigners?

Sir F. HALL: Are we to understand that these goods cannot be produced in this country? Is it some French speciality that cannot possibly be made here?

Sir V. HENDERSON: I have said that these cooking utensils were considered better than the English manufactures for the purpose for which they were required.

Sir F. HALL: Are we to understand that French goods are better than goods that can be manufactured in this country? Surely, that is wrong.

Mr. DAY: Can the hon. and gallant Member say the difference in price of the French goods compared with the English article?

UNEMPLOYMENT (BENEFIT CLAIMS, HARRIS).

Mr. KELLY: 35.
asked the Minister of Labour why instructions have been given that the court of referees at Glasgow must not, in future, hear and decide on any cases coming from the island of Harris in the matter of unemployment insurance benefit?

Mr. BETTERTON: I understand cases from Harris, under normal arrangements, would be heard at Inverness. An informal arrangement was made some time ago for certain of these cases to be heard at Glasgow. I am having further inquiries made in order to decide at which centre the cases should be dealt with.

Mr. KELLY: Am I to understand that any cases which are now pending will be heard at Glasgow and that the people will not, be forced to go to Inverness, which means a five hours' sail from their homes?

Mr. BETTERTON: The whole question as to whether these cases will be heard at Inverness or Glasgow is now under
consideration. I agree with the hon. Member that it is undesirable that people should have to travel a long distance, and I shall be quite willing to consider any representations made by the hon. Member as to which place is most desirable.

ARMS TRAFFIC, CHINA (INSURANCE).

Mr. LOOKER: 36.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any steps have been taken at the instance of his Department to prevent the insurance in this country of shipments of arms to China?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Austen Chamberlain): Without special legislation it would not be possible to prevent British firms from undertaking such business, but at the request of the Foreign Office all marine underwriters at Lloyd's, together with the Institute of London Underwriters and the Liverpool Underwriters' Association, have voluntarily agreed not to underwrite consignments of arms and/or munitions to China. I am glad to take the opportunity afforded by my hon. Friend's question to express my apprecia, Lion of the public spirit shown by them on this as on so many occasions.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

CHINA.

Sir ARTHUR SHIRLEY BENN: 37.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, as the government at Peking has shown its inability to speak in the name of China, he proposes to take any steps at the next meeting of the Council to regularise the representation of China on the League of Nations?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. The selection of States to occupy the non-permanent seats on the Council of the League rests with the Assembly; it is not a function of the Council itself.

DISARMAMENT.

Mr. RENNIE SMITH: 40.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has received any information from the Secretary-General of the League of Nations as to the date of the next meeting of the Preparatory Disarmament Commission?

Sir. A. CHAMNERLAIN: No, Sir.

Mr. SMITH: 41.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if His Majesty's Government have considered the gradual scheme of partial disarmament submitted by the Russian Government towards the end of the last meeting of the Preparatory Commission at Geneva; and if he can make a statement to the House?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The scheme is still under consideration, and I am unable to make any statement to the House at present.

Mr. SMITH: 42.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is in a position to make any statement to the House as to the conversations on naval matters and on some important principles of land disarmament in progress among the experts, to which reference was made at the close of the last meeting of the Preparatory Disarmament Commission at Geneva?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The conversations to which the hon. Member refers have not yet reached a conclusion. He will understand, therefore, that it is impossible for me to make any statement at present.

GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES (TREATIES).

Mr. HURD: 38.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if any proposal is under consideration for a peace pact between Canada and the United States distinct from that suggestion as between the United States of America and the British Empire as a whole?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: On this point, I would invite the hon. Member's attention to the last paragraph of the reply returned by His Majesty's Government in Great Britain on the 19th instant to the United States proposals for the renunciation of war. I think the hon. Member's question appeared on the Paper before that reply was published. He will see that the point he raises was dealt with.

Mr. HURD: May I take it that there are no secondary pacts in contemplation?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: As far as I know, none.

Mr. RENNIE SMITH: Have all the Dominions agreed to the whole of the statement in detail sent to Mr. Kellogg?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Will the hon. Member take the trouble to read the Government's reply to the United States He will find an answer to his question set out in the concluding paragraph.

Sir F. HALL: 39.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the United States Government have submitted any proposals for the conclusion of conciliation and arbitration treaties between America and Great Britain on similar lines to the treaties which have just been signed between America and Germany; and if he can state whether such treaties, which leave freedom of action to both countries after the lapse of a year if causes of dispute are not then settled by peaceful means are intended to be supplementary to the proposed universal peace pact, or whether they will be abrogated if such a pact is entered into?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The United States Government have made proposals for a new Arbitration Treaty to replace the Anglo-American Arbitration Treaty of 1908 which expires on the 4th of June next. These proposals are receiving careful consideration at the hands of His Majesty's Government. No proposals have been made by the United States Government for a Conciliation Treaty because there is already such a Treaty in force between the United States and Great Britain, namely, the Anglo-American Treaty regarding the establishment of a Peace Commission, signed at Washington on the 15th September, 1914. I see no reason why this Treaty or the Conciliation Treaties now being negotiated between the United States and a number of foreign countries should be abrogated if, as I hope will be the case, the proposed Treaty for the Renunciation of War becomes an accomplished fact.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

ABANDONED MINES (CATALOGUE).

Mr. KELLY: 43.
asked the Secretary for Mines when the catalogue of abandoned mines will be published, and is the information now in his Department available for inspection by those interested in the tin-mining industry?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Commodore Douglas King): The first section of the catalogue is now ready for the printers. I cannot yet state when the remaining sections will be published, but the work of classifying the information is proceeding as rapidly as possible. My Department will be glad at all times to give any information available to inquirers interested in the tin-mining industry.

RATING RELIEF.

Mr. MORGAN JONES (for Mr. G. HALL): asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the position of the coal-mining industry, especially in the exporting areas, the Government will expedite the financial assistance proposed in the Budget schemes or consider some immediate assistance to enable the industry to carry on?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Baldwin): My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer explained fully in the Budget Statement the reasons which led the Government to propose that the scheme for the relief of productive industry should not come into operation until October, 1929. For the rest, I can add nothing to the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. R. Richardson) on the 10th November last.

Mr. M. JONES: Is the Prime Minister aware that there is a general opinion among the employers and employed in the South Wales coalfield that the condition of the industry is so hard that they cannot wait until October, 1929?

The PRIME MINISTER: I understand that certain deputations will wait upon me to give expression to that view.

Mr. BATEY: Is the right bon. Gentleman aware that in November last, in reply to the hon. Member for Houghton-le-Spring (Mr. R. Richardson), he said that he was watching the situation, and are we to understand that he is still watching the situation and intending to do nothing?

The PRIME MINISTER: I have nothing to add to my answer with regard to the latter part of the question.

Captain GARRO-JONES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the sooner he
confers these benefits on certain sections of the community the sooner he will add to the burden of other sections?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am obliged for the information.

FOOD COUNCIL (TRADERS'EVIDENCE).

Mr. A. V. ALEXANDER: 46.
asked the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that the Food Council, in their Report to the Board of Trade, state that their duties cover both a permanent survey over supplies and prices of foodstuffs and the investigation of particular complaints, and that without further powers to obtain information they are unable to carry out either of these duties satisfactorily, he is now prepared at once to ask Parliament to grant the necessary statutory powers asked for by the Food Council?

The PRIME MINISTER: I announced on Thursday last the action which the Government propose to take. The decision of the Government has been communicated to the Food Council, and I understand that the Council are taking action accordingly.

Mr. ALEXANDER: Did not the Prime Minister state last week that he would only apply to Parliament for powers if satisfactory replies were not received from those who are at present recalcitrant? Does not the Food Council require general statutory powers, according to their Report?

The PRIME MINISTER: I shall have to refresh my memory as to the answer I gave, but, whatever the answer was, it gave the Food Council exactly what they wanted.

LUNACY LAW.

Sir F. HALL: 49.
asked the Minister of Health whether his attention has been called to cases which have occurred from time to time in recent years in which mentally-deranged people who would ordinarily be under restraint have, owing to the liberty allowed them, committed suicide; whether he is aware that in some of these cases doctors and magistrates have refused to sign certificates owing to their fear of possible legal pro-
ceedings; and whether he will appoint a Departmental Committee to consider and advise whether any amendment of the law relating to the certification of lunatics is desirable?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. But my right hon. Friend sees no necessity for the appointment of a Departmental Committee to consider the matter, as the Royal Commission on Lunacy reported upon difficulties of this kind and made a recommendation for an amendment of the law.

Dr. VERNON DAVIES: When will that amendment be brought forward?

Sir K. WOOD: I cannot say.

ROYAL AIR FORCE (SLOT APPARATUS).

Sir F. HALL: 50.
asked the Secretary of State for Air the number of Air Force machines which are fitted with safety-wing slots; what was the number of machines which met with fatal accidents in 1927; and how many of the machines involved were fitted with slotted wings?

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Samuel Hoare): As regards the first part of the question, I would refer to the reply which I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for South Hackney (Captain Garro-Jones) on the 16th May. As regards the remaining parts, my hon. and gallant Friend is perhaps not aware that machines fitted with slotted wings were not taken into service in squadrons until the beginning of the present year. He will appreciate that, in these circumstances, the particulars asked for are not relevant.

Sir F. HALL: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that all the advantages that are claimed for the slotted wing are to be obtained, and, if so, will he take all the necessary steps to press on so that the existing number of machines may be fitted with them as quickly as possible?

Sir S. HOARE: Yes, we are pressing on as quickly as we can. I gave figures in reply to the hon. Member for South Hackney last week, and we are pressing on as rapidly as we can.

BRITISH ARMY (FOOD SUPPLIES).

Mr. DAY: 51.
asked the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the statements made at the Aldershot Police Court, on Saturday, 5th May, to the effect that it was a common practice in Army cook-houses whenever they have a surplus stock to throw it away, and that whole cartloads of loaves of bread, meat, and other articles find their way into waste sacks; and will he consider the appointment of a committee to inquire into these allegations?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Duff Cooper): My attention has been called to these statements, and I have received a report on the matter which shows they were misleading. The reference to cartloads of bread was, I understand, an attempt to estimate the total amount of bread thrown in the swill over a period of 11 years and was not intended to indicate the amount habitually included in the periodical collection. Every precaution is taken to prevent waste and, in fact, I am informed that the contractor complains of the comparatively small quantities of swill and by-products which he receives.

Mr. DAY: Can the hon. Member say whether the statement that cooking utensils are thrown away is correct?

Mr. COOPER: I believe it is the case that on one occasion two buckets were found in the swill and were returned.

WORKSHOPS AND FACTORIES (INSPECTION).

Mr. PALIN: 53.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can furnish the proportion of 84,177 work-places, not visited by factory inspectors during 1927, in which premises women or young persons were employed in shifts?

Sir V. HENDERSON: There were six such works unvisited during 1927.

Mr. TINKER: 54.
asked the Home Secretary the reasons why over 84,000 works on the registers of the Home Office we1e not visited by any factory inspector in 1927; and what steps, if any, are being taken to overtake these arrears?

Sir V. HENDERSON: The fact that so many places were not visited was due to shortage of staff. Special efforts are always made each year—and as early in the year as possible—to visit the works which have not been inspected in the previous year, but with the limited staff available it is necessary to concentrate on the more important works. On the question of increasing the staff I would refer the hon. Member to the reply to the question asked by the hon. Member for the Gorbals Division (Mr. Buchanan) on the 8th March last.

Mr. T. HENDERSON: Will the hon. and gallant Member give an undertaking that in the cases where his Department has granted these exceptional powers, a rigid inspection will be carried out?

Sir V. HENDERSON: Yes, that is already in force. I think there are some special reasons why these particular six firms referred to have been left uninspected.

Mr. KELLY: In view of the anxiety there is in the country as to the non-visitation of these factories, will the hon. and gallant Member make an application to this House so that we may get an increase in the staff in order to deal with this difficulty?

Sir V. HENDERSON: So far as the inspection of firms employing two shifts are concerned, I do not think it is necessary.

Mr. KELLY: I am not referring to the two-shift system only, but to effective inspection generally.

Sir V. HENDERSON: The hon. Member will remember that my right hon. Friend promised to set up a small departmental committee in the autumn to go into the whole of this question, but it is not possible to increase the inspectorate in this year's Estimates.

Captain CROOKSHANK: What does the hon. and gallant Member mean by "more important firms"? Does he mean larger firms?

Sir V. HENDERSON: I do not think I used the expression "more important firms."

Captain CROOKSHANK: Yes, it is in the first reply.

ARTIFICIAL SILK FACTORIES (TWO-SHIFT SYSTEM).

Mr. KELLY: 56.
asked the Home Secretary the reasons given by the British Enka Artificial Silk Company, Limited, Aintree, the Nuera Art Silk, Limited, Sutton Oak, and the Brysilka, Limited, Apperly Bridge, for the granting of the Order, under Section 2 of the 1920 Act, for the working of the two-shift system by children, young persons, and women; and how many workers are concerned?

Sir V. HENDERSON: In all these three cases the object was to increase the output in certain processes in order to keep pace with the output in other processes. Only women and young persons of 16 years of age and over may be employed on the two-shift system. The numbers of such persons expected to be so employed in these cases were 74, 160 and 70 respectively.

Mr. KELLY: In view of the fact that in some of these factories it is reported that the conditions have an injurious effect on the health of the people, will the hon. and gallant Member see that there is a periodical inspection of those factories where the two-shift system is in operation?

Sir V. HENDERSON: Yes, Sir.

ARMISTICE DAY (CENOTAPH CEREMONY).

Mr. THURTLE: 57.
asked the Home Secretary if the Government has had under consideration the desirability, or otherwise, of continuing the Armistice Cenotaph ceremony beyond the next, or tenth anniversary?

Sir V. HENDERSON: There is no question of discontinuing the service.

Commander WILLIAMS: May I ask if my hon. and gallant Friend has noticed that it is anticipated in certain quarters that the Government will be in power for many years to come?

Mr. W. THORNE: Try another one.

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS.

Mr. THURTLE: 58.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury if the Director
of Public Prosecutions is in receipt of any fees or emoluments in addition to the salary shown in the Estimates; and, if so, the amount received for the last available year?

Mr. SAMUEL: No, Sir. The Director of Public Prosecutions does not receive any fees or emoluments in addition to the salary shown in the Estimates.

TAXICABS, LONDON.

Mr. W. BAKER: 52.
asked the Home Secretary whether he will state the number of taximeters in London which have been corrected; the number still to be altered; and the time limit within which he expects the change to be concluded?

Sir V. HENDERSON: The number of taximeters corrected and fitted to motor cabs up to the 16th May was 4,137. Approximately 3,700 remain to be altered. It is expected that all the cabs will be fitted with the corrected taximeters by the 31st August next.

Mr. DAY: Is it proposed to extend the time limit for taxicabs whose owners are not in a position to have them fitted at present?

Sir V. HENDERSON: That will be considered when 31st August comes.

BILLS PRESENTED.

COAL MINES (PROTECTION OF ANIMALS) BILL,

"to amend certain provisions of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, relating to the protection of horses and other animals used in mines," presented by Sir Robert Gower; supported by Lieut.-Colonel Moore, Dr. Watts, Sir George Jones, Mr. Couper, Mr. Ritson, Mr. Batey, Mr. Charleton, Mr. Thurtle, Mr. Bromley, and Dr. Shiels; to be read a Second time upon Thursday, 7th June, and to be printed. [Bill 137.]

DOGS AND CATS BILL,

"to facilitate the recovery of lost dogs and cats," presented by Sir Robert Gower; supported by Lieut.-Colonel Moore, Mr. James Henry Thomas, Mr. Hall Caine, Major Kenyon-Slaney, Mr.
Bromley, Mr. Ernest Evans, Captain Holt, Dr. Watts, Mr. Fergus Graham, Mr. James Hudson, and Mr. Couper; to be read a Second time upon Thursday, 7th June, and to be printed. [Bill 138.]

ACCESS TO MOUNTAINS BILL,

"to secure to the public the right of access to mountains and moorlands," presented by Mr. Trevelyan; supported by Sir Martin Conway, Mr. Johnston, Mr. MacKenzie Livingstone, Sir Assheton Pownall, Mr. Cecil Wilson, and Sir Alfred Hopkinson; to he read a Second time upon Tuesday, 5th June, and to be printed. [Bill 139.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Commander Eyres Monsell): As the Opposition wish to raise the question of the beam wireless and cable services, and it has been found difficult at the moment 'to determine which is the appropriate Vote on which this question can be discussed, the Government propose to move the Adjournment of the House before the Orders of the Day are entered upon, so that we preserve our Supply day by taking Supply later on, and I understand that the Opposition, at the conclusion of the discussion on the Motion for the Adjournment, will be ready for me to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Mr. RAMSAY MacDONALD: I would like to thank my right hon. and gallant Friend for the way in which he has met us in this matter. We did find that it was impossible to get a Vote which was sufficiently comprehensive for us to discuss the whole of the issues. We shall embody our views on the Motion for the Adjournment of the House, and that Motion will not be carried to a Division.

WIRELESS AND CABLE SERVICES.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Mr. WALTER BAKER: The statement which I have been asked to make to the House is a very difficult one to make, and I fear that it will be a very long one. I therefore ask that hon. Members will be as patient as they can be with me in my endeavour to place the position with regard to the beam and cable services before them in as simple a fashion as possible. At the outset I would say that this discussion is being taken to-day because we fear that a very dangerous situation, so far as the nation and the Empire are concerned, is about to arise, if it has not already arisen, and the fears that it is my duty to express this afternoon are fears which it is not possible entirely to prove or to provide with a complete foundation. If it should happen that the Government are able to prove that my fears and the fears of my friends are groundless, I need hardly say that none will be more relieved than ourselves. The tragic history of British wireless policy, or perhaps it should be lack of policy, will, I understand, be very fully and completely covered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn), who was Postmaster-General in the last Administration. But I want, in passing, to remind the House that the Cabinet in 1923, speaking through the Prime Minister, stated:
It is necessary, in the interests of the national security, that there should be a wireless station in this country capable of communicating with the Dominions, and owned and operated by the State.
There can be no doubt that the statement was accurate in 1923, and I respectfully submit that it is equally true in 1928. From the date of the Norman Committee, which reported in 1920, there has been a lack of consistent policy on the question of the ownership and control of wireless and cable services. The Norman Committee recommended that services with foreign countries outside Europe should be left to private companies, but that the existing policy, whereby Anglo-Continental services were owned and controlled by the State, should be continued. The remarkable thing is that, despite that most emphatic
declaration on the part of the Norman Committee, the Postmaster-General of that day, 1921, announced that private companies would be allowed to develop the service to foreign countries, more especially to the Continent of Europe, and he decided to grant licences to the Marconi Company for several European countries. My information is that the decision of the Postmaster-General in 1921 has been responsible for a considerable loss to the public revenue, and it has certainly had the effect of greatly entrenching the position of the private wireless interests.
In contrast with the vacillation of other Governments, perhaps I may be forgiven if I congratulate and compliment my right hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore not only on the promptitude with which he dealt with this problem, but also on the decision that he reached. I understand that immediately he took office he appointed the Donald Committee, and that the Donald Committee conducted its investigations with such despatch that within one month of the date on which the Labour Government took office, the Report was available and was immediately adopted. It is specially significant that Sir Robert Donald, who was an advocate of private enterprise, has since confessed that the information placed before him whilst on that Committee convinced him of the need for the State ownership and control of Imperial wireless communications. Having seen the conversion of Sir Robert Donald, we almost ventured to hope that the State had reached a settled policy with regard to this problem, but we had a great shock in the early months of this year, and from that shock we have not yet recovered.
The first meeting of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference took place, I believe, on 16th January, 1928, and on 15th March last we were alarmed by a statement in the London "Evening News," which was confirmed—if confirmed be the right word—by the "Daily Mail" on the following morning, the statement being to the effect that it was proposed to transfer Post Office cables and beam stations to private enterprise. As a result of that announcement, four questions appeared on the Order Paper for 22nd March, in the names of three
Members of my party and one Member of the Liberal party, and the Prime Minister, replying to the four questions together, said:
His Majesty's Government and the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference had no previous knowledge of the details of and have no responsibility for any financial arrangements for the merger of the Eastern Telegraph and Marconi Companies. As regards the general question, I can make no statement in advance of reports from the Imperial Conference, which only on Monday received a proposal from the two companies; but, since hon. Members have specifically inquired as to the attitude of His Majesty's Government in Great Britain, I think it right to say that the Government, while it is prepared to join in discussing measures for a working arrangement, is not committed even in principle, and reserves freedom of action in regard to any proposals for tranfer of the operation and control of the Imperial wireless services at present administered by His Majesty's Government."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd March, 1928; col. 557, Vol. 215.]
On 29th March a further question was put to the Prime Minister as to the existence of adequate safeguards and to that he replied:
The question whether any safeguards are necessary will be considered when the Report of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference has been received."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th March, 1928; col. 1340, Vol. 215.]
On 1st May, in response to a further question, the Prime Minister said:
No Report has as yet been submitted by the Wireless and Cable Conference. It is not, therefore, possible for me to say anything with regard to its publication. No offer has been made direct to His Majesty's Government in Great Britain in regard to the purchase of the whole means of Imperial telegraphic communication. I understand that certain suggestions in this connection have been laid before the Conference, and are still under consideration by that body. Until the Report of the Comference is available it is obviously impossible for me to make any statement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st May, 1928; col. 1513, Vol. 216.]
Yet another question was put on 14th May, when the Prime Minister replied:
I understand that the deliberations of the Conference will riot be concluded for some little time. As soon as I am in a position to do so I will make a statement." [OFFICIAL REPORT, 14th May, 1928; col. 663, Vol. 217.]
Arising out of that reply, I put a supplementary question asking the Prime Minister whether he was aware that one member of the Imperial Conference had sailed for home on 4th May. The Prime
Minister, after consultation with the Secretary of State for Scotland, informed the House that the gentleman in question was no more than a technical adviser. I asked the Prime Minister whether I was to understand that Mr. Lenton, the Postmaster-General of South Africa, was no more than a technical adviser and the Prime Minister then said that he would require notice of that question. It is important to notice that the "Times" on 17th January gave a list of the members of the Conference and the expert advisers to the Conference. In every case except that of South Africa, the Dominions, Colonies and Protectorates had each two or more representatives—that is a member and an expert adviser—but, in the case of South Africa, Mr. H. J. Lenton was the sole representative of that Dominion. On 17th May, I received a letter from the Prime Minister's private secretary as follows:
The Prime Minister regrets that a misunderstanding arose in regard to the Supplementary Question which you put to him, arising out of your question of 14th May, on the subject of the Report of the Imperial Conference on Cable and Wireless Services. He was under the impression that you were referring to the departure of one of the technical advisers, three of whom have left for home at various times, and not to Mr. Lenton. Mr. Lenton was, of course, the representative of the Union of South Africa and did sail on 4th inst., his place having been taken for the time being by Mr. Eales. The Prime Minister hopes that this will serve to clear up the misunderstanding.
If I may say so, there was no misunderstanding as far as we were concerned. The whole difficulty arose because the Prime Minister was not fully informed by his right hon. colleague. On 17th May, there was yet a further statement in which the Prime Minister, having consented to this day being taken for this discussion, said:
I think I ought to remind them (the Opposition) of what has, I understand, been conveyed to them already—that, so far as the discussions of the Imperial Conference are concerned, we cannot make any statement about that until they have concluded their deliberations. I have made inquiries, and it may be another month."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th May, 1928; col. 1222, Vol. 217.]
I find it difficult to believe—and I make the statement with all respect to the Prime Minister—that Mr. Lenton has returned to South Africa and that three
technical advisers have left the Conference without a decision having been reached. My difficulty is increased by the specific statement of the Prime Minister that he hopes that the Report will be available in a month. Mr. Lenton has gone home to South Africa and this is much too important a matter to be decided in the absence of a responsible Minister from that Dominion. If a decision has not already been reached, I quite fail to see how South Africa is to have any part or lot in it. Our great fear is that a recommendation has been agreed to by the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference, that that recommendation, based on a provisional decision, has been submitted to the Dominion Governments and that when the Dominion Governments have signified their acquiescence in it, then—not for the first time—we in this country will find that a bargain has been concluded and that our hands are tied.
I ask the House to note that the Prime Minister, in his reply of 22nd March, said that he had no previous knowledge of and no responsibility for the financial merger or any of its financial details. I understand that that merger was a definite, calculated attempt to force the hands of the Government. I understand further that that calculated attempt to force the hands of the Government was accompanied by a treacherous threat on the part of the cable companies to which I propose to refer in a few moments. Part of my object in raising this matter to-day is to ventilate the facts. As I said earlier, we cannot prove that our fears are well-founded, but I think we can place facts before this House of which the Prime Minister has been ignorant up to this moment. I believe that the Prime Minister is unaware of the strength of the forces which are arrayed against the national interests. From the nature of his replies to questions, particularly his replies to Supplementary questions, I fear he has no idea of the nature of this problem as far as the nation and the Empire are concerned, and if this discussion does nothing else but bring out the facts of the case, I think it will have served a very useful purpose.
Why is it that there is such an extraordinary anxiety to possess the Post Office beam service? It is the stock-in-trade of our opponents that Government Departments are inefficient and that
private enterprise can do things very much better, but the Marconi Company is not actuated by any motives of that sort it is not anxious to take over the Post Office beam service because it feels that it can do it better than is being done by the existing organisation. The fact is that the Marconi Company is on the inside of this thing, and it knows how great are the potential profits of the Government beam service. I understand that the Post Office beam service, while yet in its infancy, is already showing a very handsome profit. I understand—and the PostmasterGeneral will be able, I hope, to confirm that understanding—that the estimated profit from the beans service in this country is put at £500,000 for the current year. While I cannot give absolutely official information, I am quite prepared to accept the opinion of the right hon. Frederick Kellaway as to the inside of the Marconi Company. At the twenty-eighth ordinary general meeting of the Marconi International Marine Communication Company, which was held on 30th March last and reported in the "Times" on the following day, Mr. Kellaway said:
Our shareholding in Amalgamated Wireless (Australia), Limited, promises to he a sound investment. For the year ended 30th June last, the company showed a profit of £25,149, or more than double the profit of the previous year, although the accounts did not include the profits from the beam service.
That rosy picture was confirmed by the Australian Prime Minister, who said that the beam service had taken 46 per cent. of the traffic which was previously handled by one of the big cable companies. I submit that that is sufficient to explain the Marconi interest.
What about the cable companies? The cable companies are frankly afraid of the success of the Post Office beam service, and they entered into the financial merger because they saw no other way of escaping from that competition. Quite apart from the loss of traffic due to the very successful competition of the Government beam service, that competition had compelled the cable companies to reduce their rates by, I believe, an average of 4d. a word, and despite those reductions the beam service rates remain at about 4d. a word less than those of any of their competitors. The parties to this financial merger hope to take over the Post Office wireless and
cable systems and to control all independent wireless and cable companies in the Dominions, and they are quite definitely to be grouped under two heads—the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company and the Eastern and Associated Cable Companies.
What is the record of the Marconi Company? The Marconi Company last year was reconstructed, assets to the extent of £6,000,000 being written off. The "Times" of 16th March, 1927, in an editorial, characterised the record of the company as one of "reckless mismanagement." It said:
Over a period of years substantial profits were reported, inordinately large fees were paid to certain directors, and shareholders were lulled into a false sense of security by receiving appreciable dividends. Yet all the time, as it now turns out, the company was in fact suffering heavy losses by unwise investments (several of which had nothing whatever to do with the company's business), by advances to subsidiary companies which turned out to be bad debts, and by foolish speculation in foreign currencies.
The cable companies and the newspapers which support them affect to be opposed on principle—and all such opposition is based on principle—to State intervention, but in this case they are concerned because a, system of competition—that competition which they are always pleased to applaud, but in this case the competition of a Government Department—has been amazingly successful in limiting their profits and in reducing their rates. I want to show, however, that while they are opposed to State intervention, they have no objection to receiving State subsidies and assistance. I cannot possibly hope to give the whole of the facts, because even as it is I am afraid that I shall weary the House with the length of my statement, but I want, on this question of subsidies, to give four instances of the way in which the cable companies have been put upon their legs by Government assistance.
A sum of £32,400 a year for 20 years was paid by the Government to the Eastern Extension Telegraph Company to promote communications with Australia; £55,000 a year for 20 years was paid to the Eastern and South African Telegraph Company to promote the building of East African cables, because dependence on private profit would not give the development needed for future
commercial requirements and national security; from 1885 the African Direct Telegraph Company received annual subsidies of £19,000 for 20 years towards cables. down the West Coast of Africa; and for 20 years from 1893 the Eastern and South African Company, which has already been referred to in another connection, received £28,000 towards cables between Zanzibar and Mauritius. Yet these same cable companies, which have received such generous State assistance in the past, went to the International Wireless and Cable Conference complaining of their inability to compete with the successful Government competition of the beam service, and it is reported—and this is the part which I regard most seriously—that they threatened to pay out their shareholders, to cease operations, and to let their cables go derelict.
4.0 p.m.
If that threat actually was made—and I have every reason to believe that it was—I think it is a remarkable illustration of the patriotism of private enterprise. To receive—I hope I am not exaggerating if I say millions—at any rate vast sums of money from the State in order to build up your business, and then, when it does not look like being particularly profitable, because of a new invention successfully operated by a Government Department, to have no regard to any national or Empire interests, whatever, and to threaten to scrap the whole of the business, which has been built up by the people as much as by anybody, is, in my view, an act which is worthy of the strongest possible condemnation. But the story does not end there. These cable companies are not poor companies. It was necessary that they should have subsidies in order that their business might be put on a sound basis, but they certainly have done very well since. They have built up enormous reserves, because in the absence of effective competition they were able to charge excessive rates. With a total capital, including debentures, of less than £18,000,000, I understand that the Eastern, Eastern Extension and Western Cable Companies have reserves in cash of over £11,000,000. These are the people who are preparing to scrap their system rather than come to a reasonable arrangement with the Government in the national interest. The £11,000,000 cash reserves
of the cable companies is remarkable enough, but the "Times," on 23rd March, puts the cash assets of the financial merger between the wireless and cable companies at £20,000,000. The proper course for the cable companies to have taken would have been to endeavour to reduce their profits in order that the commercial users might have had the best possible service at the lowest possible price. That is not the course they have chosen. They have chosen to get together with the Marconi Company in the hope that they will be able to continue to exploit the commercial and industrial user.
I want to draw the attention of the House to another remarkable feature about this business. As a rule, it is the unsuccessful competitor which goes out of business. Not so in this case. Marconis are anxious to secure the profits made by the Government themselves. If my information is right, Marconis get 6¼ per cent. of the total and the Post Office gets the rest. Marconis see rather a rich field, and they want it for themselves. That is understandable. The cable companies say that they cannot stand up against the beam competition at all, it is too much for them, and these two groups come together, and, if my information is correct, they approach the Government with the proposal that they, the unsuccessful people, should be given the profitable Government services in order that they may have no competitors, in order that they may exploit the world, and in order that the British people may lose a very substantial source of revenue. During the whole of these discussions, we had a tremendous number of warnings, a great deal of friendly advice from the Press which supports these cable companies' interests, and they tell us that it is really extraordinarily important that we should be careful to regard this offer favourably, because there is, and has been, a very great danger that this service might be secured by American financial interests. In fact, Mr. Kellaway recently said that American commercial interests had offered to take over the whole internal and external telegraph and telephone services of the United Kingdom. A few days earlier it was reported that an American cable and telegraph group proposed to apply for a licence to
operate a London station on a new shortwave system in rivalry with Marconi; and, finally, when announcing the merger of the cable and wireless interests, the "Daily Mail" on 16th March, assured us:
The public would be astonished to know how nearly control passed into American hands,
the result being
a saving for the British Empire of the inter-Empire communications. The importance of this is incalculable.
Well, it may be that the importance of retaining the control of the means of communication by telegraph between ourselves, the Dominions and the Colonies is as high in value as the "Daily Mail" puts it, but Marconis are not the people who are going to safeguard us against any such danger. As I understand it, they have entered into financial and working arrangements not only with American interests but with German interests. In actual fact, their net is spread in the widest possible manner. Marconis in 1922 entered into association with three great world wireless companies, one American, one French and one German, and the object of that arrangement was to parcel out the world into spheres of exploitation. The American company—I would ask the House to observe the name—is known as the Radio Corporation of America, and that is one of the groups from which our friends of the "Daily Mail" are so extremely anxious to save us. I would ask the spokesman for the Government to give us certain information, and the first piece of information I would like to have is a statement giving the whole of Marconi's financial and other commitments, because I believe that when we get down to the financial springs of this business it will be really enlightening not only to the Government but to ourselves. I understand that even shareholders in the Marconi Company are unable to obtain that information. In 1924, Sir Robert Donald made a statement in the "Manchester Guardian" of 21st May as follows:
The fact that the Marconi company is in a world combination of wireless, in which the predominant partner is an American trust, is another factor which makes State ownership desirable, if not inevitable.
Only last year the majority of the shares of the Canadian Marconi Company were purchased by the Canmar Company,
which is a combination between the Radio Corporation of America and the British Marconi Company. The Radio Corporation are the largest shareholders, and, incidentally, made a direct financial gain as a result of the market movements which have been taking place in London arising out of the discussions in the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference. I want to emphasise the fact that we are being asked to hand over our Imperial telegraphic communications to two groups, one of which has a record of scandalous mismanagement and widespread international combination, and the other of which came to the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference to state that they could not stand up against the Post Office competition, and which threatened to scrap its plant.
I want to say a few words in regard to the immense sums of money which have been made upon the Stock Exchange both here and in America during the sittings of this Imperial Conference. When the first announcement was made with regard to the possibility of a fusion between the wireless and the Canadian interests, Radio Corporation stock boomed in America, but as it is more difficult for me to get information from America than in this country, I propose to confine myself in the main to the movement in the shares which are quoted in this country. The shares of the cable group had been falling at the end of 1927 and the beginning of 1928. The highest point reached by the Eastern Telegraphs ordinary shares in 1927 was 183. At the end of December they had fallen to 140. They opened the year 1928 at 136. On the fusion announcement of 14th March, they reached 141. As a result of an "Evening News" announcement of 15th March, they went to 160, and the following day they reached 200. On 4th May the "Daily Mail" announced that the Government had reached a decision. On that day the price went to 220. That was a Friday. On the Monday the price had gone up to 238, on the Tuesday it was 241 and on the Wednesday 242. If the price at the beginning of the year was 136 and on 9th May 242, I think we have a very interesting illustration of the very great value of inside information. In the three days, 14th, 15th and 16th March, the value of the cable group shares increased
to the extent of £6,000,000. I regret to say I have not worked out the total gain for the whole period, but I think the £6,000,000 for the three days is quite sufficient to go on with.
Now look at Marconis. In 1927, Marconis fell as low as 13s., and on the prospect of beam profits they rose to, 39s. 6d. early in 1928. On the 13th March, they reached 60s. 3d., on 14th March 67s. 6d. and so it goes on. I do not want to weary the House with the whole list of prices, but every figure from 13th to 26th March is over 60s., on 30th April 62s. 9d. and on 8th May 71s. I am told that in the City of London to-day the confident tip is to buy Marconis, because of the immense field which is there to be exploited when the Government decision comes into operation. Now Canadian Marconis—and this is the last thing of this sort with which I shall trouble the House—on 13th March were 16s., on 16th March 31s., on 30th April 28s. 6d., and, after fluctuating, on 14th May they finished at 30s. Even if they do not stand at the highest price at the moment, they show a very definite increase from 16s. to over 30s., and it is important to notice that the principal rise takes place in the first instance when the "Evening News" makes the announcement as to possibilities, and, in the second place, when that other independent newspaper the "Daily Mail" makes a similar announcement.
I want to submit to this House quite calmly and quietly that Marconi, the name of the most illustrious inventor of our time, the man who has brought science to a wonderful point as far as telegraphy and telephony are concerned, stands in this country quite definitely for scandal and corruption. I regard it as a most lamentable thing that a scientific inventor should have his name abused in this way, but the fact remains. I do not want to be so unkind as to delve into the history associated with the word "Marconi." It would be enlightening if we could get the whole of the facts, and I am certain that a number of important persons would be extraordinarily disturbed as a result. There are, however, certain facts which must come out in a discussion of this sort. It is well known that a Postmaster-General went from the Post Office to the Wireless Company. I am not going to say anything about the
right hon. Gentleman. Every Member of this House must make his own comment. I know nothing about the gentleman; all I know is that he went from the Post Office to the Wireless Company. I make no comment. It is not equally well known that other persons have gone from the Post Office service to the Marconi companies and to the cable companies. A very important director of the Marconi International Marine Communication Company started life as I started it. He put in a great deal of valuable work with the Post Office, and he then went to the Marconi Company.

Captain FRASER: Why did they not offer the hon. Member a job?

Mr. BAKER: It is not for me to reply to a question of that sort, but I certainly claim no distinction such as is attached to the gentleman about whom I am talking; he is an exceedingly distinguished telegraph engineer.

Captain FRASER: Why should he not go there?

Mr. BAKER: I am coming to that. I want it to be clearly understood that I do not suggest that this gentleman did anything dishonourable, according to present standards, in leaving the Post Office and baking his experience to the Marconi Company. I understand that gentlemen on the Government side are in the habit of defending this sort of thing; is it any wonder that Government enterprise does not pay, when the whole of the knowledge and experience which is built up on the Government side is transferred, at a price, to private interests? Is it any wonder, when men go from the Treasury to become directors of newspapers, that the Government cannot keep level with private interests? I have never heard of the reverse process operating, of a man from the Marconi board going to the Post Office and taking with him Marconi secrets and technical information. I demand a new policy from this Government; I demand that it shall become a regulation that no Minister or member of the Civil Service shall ever be permitted to enter the service of a company or combine with which he has had official negotiations. It is not immoral to-day, but it requires a great deal of indelicacy to do it, in my opinion. Not only is the gentleman to whom I
have referred an important director of the Marconi International Marine Communication Company, but in the Directory of Directors he is given as occupying another position in the wireless world. I do not quote that, because I fear that there may be a possibility that the Directory of Directors has made a mistake; in that work of reference, however, he is mentioned as occupying that second position.
These are not the only cases. There is yet a third case within my own knowledge. An ex-assistant secretary of the Post Office, who was in charge of the wireless and cable service of the Post Office, with whom I have negotiated in relation to such matters, and who was, I understand, to a considerable extent responsible for negotiations concerning wireless matters with the Marconi Company, is to-day a director of the International Cable Companies Association and a director of the Indo-European Telegraph Company; he will, I assume—I may be wrong—come within the limit of this financial merger between the wireless and cable companies. Frankly, I do not like it. It may be all right, but I do not like it, and I very much fear that these three are not the only cases. It is not every work of reference that gives the whole of this information. In "Who's Who" every man does not include his directorates under the heading of his name. I quite seriously ask that the Government will issue a statement giving the names and ranks of all persons who have been connected in any capacity with the Government service, and who have transferred their services to the Marconi Companies, to the cable companies, and to their subsidiaries or connections. I hope that it will not be regarded as an unreasonable request. Not only has this group been extraordinarily successful in attracting to their service persons with inside knowledge of the Government service, but I believe that the home Government's difficulties are almost entirely due to the financial operations of Marconi in the Dominions. I do not want to be specific. I wish I could be, because I understand that one Dominion has a remarkably clean record in regard to this matter. The gravest possible charges are made in regard to Marconi operations in the Dominions, and distinguished Members of this House have told me in private certain things
which I would not dare to repeat, unless I were able to prove them, and I must ask to be allowed to leave the matter at that point.
If there be any doubt about the Marconi Company and its methods, let us look at the record of a case tried in 1924. In an action by a Mr. Malcolm against the Marconi Company in 1924, it was agreed by plaintiffs and defendants that, in negotiating with the Chinese Government about contracts, "presents to officials, euphemistically called rebates," had to be introduced. These rebates ran into tens of thousands of pounds. Perhaps we can leave it here. It may be that the Marconi Company, having found it successful in China, tried it elsewhere. I should also like to ask the Government to supply us with a complete list of the insurance companies and other bodies and persons who hold large blocks of shares in the Marconi Company, in the cable companies, and in their subsidiaries. Provided that a decision has been reached—and I am bound, until a statement is made from the Government side, to believe that a decision has been reached—the Government have adopted a course which is fatal to the national interest, which lacks the safeguards which are so necessary to our national well-being; and the chief result of the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference has been to enrich the share manipulators and similar persons. Will the Government take us into their confidence as to the original of this Imperial Conference? Who suggested that it should be called? How came the suggestion to be made? No doubt there is a perfectly adequate answer, but I do not happen to know it. Why was the Secretary of State for Scotland selected to look after our interests in this matter? I cannot see that it is a matter specially for Scotland; the Secretary of State for Scotland is conspicuous for his geniality and courtesy, but geniality and courtesy are not weapons with which to meet an international gang like this. I would say respectfully, and with no wish to say anything against the right hon. Gentleman, that he was possibly the last member of the Government who should have been chosen for this task.

Mr. MacLAREN: They should have put up the Secretary of State for the Dominions.

Mr. BAKER: It would be invidious to make distinctions in that way, but I would like to ask why the Postmaster-General was not chosen? His Department was primarily concerned; he has a good deal of knowledge of this subject, and he has had contact with it for a considerable time. I suggest, without being in any way in the confidence of the Postmaster-General, that he and his Department regard this business as a scandalous ramp, and are not prepared to be parties to it. I hope I shall be forgiven for taking up so much time, but it really is important to cover the whole of this ground, if it can be covered. The next point I want to submit is that Imperial communication is of first-class importance in relation to possible future war. I should like to feel that we shall never again be faced with international warfare, but I see no reason to suppose that that state of security has been reached. Our experience in the last War was that for the first two years the Government censorship was not effective, because certain cables were privately owned, and were not under the full control of the Government. I do not want to give chapter and verse for that, but anyone who wishes to know anything about it can go to the War Office records and look up the Enemy Trade Index, and he will find a lot of information as to why it was that the War dragged on to such an extent. Our failure to control this particular form of international communication was one of the serious difficulties which confronted us at that time. I am told that the cable companies' interest was to maintain their volume of business and their profits. That may be perfectly natural, but that was not the national need at that time, and there must inevitably be a clash between the desire of the individual corporation to secure profits and the national desire for something which is much higher and more important. I hope the question of the great importance of these means of communication to our national life will be very carefully considered by every member of the Government.
Not only is it necessary that we should have the most complete control over these means of communication during wartime, but it is important that we should have the cheapest, the most reliable and the most speedy means of communication in peace time. Without stop-
ping to argue the matter I suggest that the lowest possible rate and the best possible service can be attained only by State ownership and control, and that the enormous success of the Post Office with the beam service must be accepted as an earnest of what they are capable of doing. Whilst the Marconi Company have been representing that it is absolutely essential that we should have a co-ordinated wireless and beam service, their actions in the Dominions have been almost entirely responsible for the number of authorities which have been set up. The right hon. F. G. Kellaway, speaking at the 28th annual general meeting, on 31st March, said:
As the proceedings of that Conference"—
that is, the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference—
are confidential in the highest degree, I cannot. refer to any of the proceedings before it, nor can I even indicate, since I do not know, what recommendation the Conference is likely to make, but there are certain broad considerations to which I am entitled to refer. They are considerations which in my judgment make it an imperative Imperial necessity that the external telegraph services of the United Kingdom should be operated as one telegraph unit. As things are now the external telegraph services of the United Kingdom are in the hands of at least six different authorities. Yon will at once see how wasteful and expensive such a system is bound to be, the cost of which has, of course, to be carried by the telegraph-using public; six different companies maintaining six different organisations for the collection and distribution of traffic, six different administrative staffs, and as many research and technical departments. But what makes the situation even worse is that there is no single authority charged with the duty of securing a common and coherent policy for the development of the telegraph services of the Empire, both cable and wireless. In these circumstances it is not surprising that there is a real danger of the British Empire falling behind in the struggle which is going on in the world's telegraphic and telephonic communications outside the British Empire.
In my view, the impudence of that statement would be difficult to beat. As I have already submitted to the House, the existence of divided control so far as wireless is concerned, is entirely the result of the friction which has been set up by the Marconi Company and its interests. I am informed that the parties to the merger are acting as though the transfer of the Post Office beam and cable services was a fait accompli. I sincerely
hope that we are misinformed. I sincerely trust that when the right hon. Gentleman speaks at the conclusion of this Debate on behalf of the Labour party he will ask for an assurance that if a decision has not been reached, it will not be taken until the whole of the available facts with regard to the whole of these interests have been laid before the country, and, further, that if the decision has been reached, the earliest possible opportunity will be taken to reverse it, and to cancel the advantage which has been improperly secured. I am extremely sorry to have been so long, but I regard this matter as being of very great importance, not only because of the facts surrounding this particular combination of financial, wireless and cable forces, but because it is indicative of much the gravest evil with which our national life is likely to be confronted in the future, and I do hope, whatever may be the outcome of this discussion, that we shall at least have secured a plain statement from the Government which will reassure us and disabuse our minds of the fears which have been in them for so many days.

Sir HAMAR GREENWOOD: I have followed the hon. Member who opened this discussion with great interest, and with much of what he has said I find myself in full agreement. He raises certain questions as to the moral probity of Ministers on retirement taking directorships in concerns with which they have had official communications and with regard to which they have possibly had to take official action. That is an old-standing question which might well be inquired into again, and a decision on the highest moral ground arrived at. I also agree with him that the fluctuations on the stock exchange, not limited to England, but on the stock exchanges of the world, form one of the most embarrassing factors in so far as actual serious industry is concerned. Put it is beyond the power of the British Government, acting alone, to deal with that problem of modern materialism. With the hon. Member's conclusions I disagree. He is in favour of the State ownership of cables and wireless; I am not, for reasons which I hope to set out very briefly and, I am sure, as courteously as in the example which the hon. Member has set me. I remember when the question of laying the first
Pacific cable was raised nearly 30 years ago. The pioneer in that movement was a distinguished countryman of my own, Sir Sanford Fleming, who started in life a typically poor Scottish boy and became the chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The Pacific cable system was brought into being largely because of the forceful personality of the late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who considered it to be necessary in order to link up the Western Coast of Canada with Australia and New Zealand. It was a great experiment and I can testify personally and with knowledge to the zeal with which it was carried out by the Pacific Cable Board, representing the Home country, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and by the officers and staff who operate the system.
The main argument for setting up this system in place of private enterprise was this. In those days Governments were rich, comparatively, and individuals were poor, and it was regarded as being beyond the power of individuals to spend the amount of money required to establish this great experiment in inter-Imperial communications. Things have changed now. Governments are poor, individuals and groups of individuals, corporations and companies, are rich, and growing richer. This Government of ours has reached the very maximum of the taxable capacity of the country, and I believe the Pacific cable system is retarded in its development by the inevitable and necessary meanness of the Treasury, which must refuse to advance any capital for its further development, I take the view that State ownership of this cable system or of wireless in any form makes for under-development and not adequate development. The hon. Member raised the question of why the Secretary of State for Scotland was Chairman of the Imperial Cable and Wireless Conference. He did not make clear why that. Conference is sitting. The Pacific Cable Board, which has been operating for nearly 30 years, found that the Post Office beam system was able to send messages to Australia and to the East at a much cheaper rate than they could be sent by the Government-owned Pacific cable system. Naturally the Dominions, who were parties to the construction of that cable, and are parties to its operation, and are liable for the losses wanted to know where they stood.
The position was that the Post Office in England was competing with the English Government plus the Governments of the three Dominions. I know nothing more amazing. It is quite Gilbertian to see one department of His Majesty's Government cutting rates with another department of His Majesty's Government which is interested in a joint partnership with British Dominions.
Naturally the position had to be inquired into, and the conference has been assembled and has been carrying on for months. This vast conference, represents all parts of the Empire, and has, I suppose, 12 or 20 senior civil servants and experts. It is a most complex question, as is shown by the numbers of Ministers representing different interests who are at present on the Treasury Bench. My view is that the great experiment of State-owned cables and of the Beam system has been justified, but that the time has now come when the work should be transferred to private enterprise, and continued by private persons, the Government being thereby freed from their liabilities. I am certain that business interests, overseas and in the home country, would be gratified to see that brought about. Like the hon. Member who has spoken I am in the dark as to what the Imperial Cable and Wireless Conference has done, and as to what His Majesty's Government have done, but, speaking from some experience, I can quite understand the reasons for the prolonged negotiations. The conference meets, questions are submitted to His Majesty's Government, the Cabinet appoints a Committee, the Committee reports to the Cabinet, all the Dominions and all the Colonies interested in this vast network of Imperial- or British-owned cables must be communicated with. It must take a long time to come to a conclusion.
The experience of the last few months confirms me in my view that neither the Post Office, however efficient, nor any Government Department is in these modern days the proper person or persons to construct or to operate cables or wireless systems. I say that for another reason. There is no doubt that at. the moment this conflict between the beam system, which is owned by the British Post Office, and the Pacific Cable Board, which is jointly owned by the
three Dominions and the Home country, must lead to a certain amount of irritation. I differ absolutely from the hon. Member who talked about a menace to the British Empire. He is putting it too high. The Empire is too firmly united to be threatened by any question as to who is to operate wireless or cables; but it is a cause of irritation. I am for removing causes of irritation, and I believe that until these systems are transferred to private persons we shall always have irritation, and possibly a growing irritation. Therefore, I am in favour of transfer on the ground that it will make for inter-Imperial good will. I believe such a transfer would mean the immediate development of a more efficient service or services. I believe, further, that such a transfer would command the support of the business communities of the whole Empire.
I have no interest in the Eastern Telegraph Company or the Marconi Company. I know the history of the Marconi Company as every other hon. Member knows it, and it is not a history in all matters that anybody need be proud of. Signor Marconi is one who has been a loyal and beneficent factor in the development of this country and the British Empire and as far as he is concerned we all agree that he has not in any way been connected with anything questionable in the history of the affairs of the company. In dealing with this inter-Imperial communication system it must be remembered that the Eastern Telegraph Company and the Marconi Company are not the only people who may be prepared to buy the assets of the Government in cables and wireless. I agree that those assets are most valuable.
I have no doubt that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury may tell us that the Government have not made up their minds on this subject, but I am doing my best to help them to make up their minds. If the Government do decide to dispose of these assets I ask them to realise that they are most. valuable and that they are growing in value. When dealing with the Eastern Telegraph Company or the Marconi Company I am sure the Financial Secretary will have a wonderful opportunity of exercising his best peremptory manner. I agree with the hon. Member
that this is not a case for any undue sentiment but it is an opportunity to make a good bargain on what I should call a rising market to discharge a heavy liability of the Imperial and Dominion Governments. It is an opportunity for giving an impetus to Imperial communications and trade generally which must follow, and it is an opportunity for separating from the State the ownership of this industry. If what I have suggested is carried out, I am sure we shall be able to carry with us the approval of the business men, and I hope also of the Governments of the Dominions concerned, and I believe this would make for inter-Imperial good will and, I hope, would meet with the approval of the House of Commons.

Mr. AMMON: I desire to add a few words to the discussion which has already taken place in order to complete the case put by my hon. Friend the Member for East Bristol (Mr. W. Baker). I take this opportunity, first of all, of saying that I associate myself unreservedly with the statement that there is no reflection upon Signor Marconi himself, and it is a matter for regret that the Marconi Company itself has not gained the very best reputation since it began to operate. I understand that the Government are not in a position to make any definite statement in regard to what is taking place. at the Imperial Conference, but it was thought worth while that this discussion should take place in order that, as far as possible, it might be intimated that a close eye is being kept on the discussions which are taking place on this subject, that the history of this question is being kept in mind, and that when the Report of the Imperial Conference is issued we may consider that Report in the light of this discussion in order to see that everything is fair and above board.
The last speaker has argued in favour of wireless and cable communication being kept under the control and ownership of private companies. Let me examine that argument for a moment or two. As a matter of fact, until the operation of the invention of wireless the cable companies had badly let down the whole of their stock and communications, and had practically done nothing for a number of years after the invention with the exception of making some
technical improvements, such as duplexing, amplifiers, printing and the regenerator. It was not until they realised that the Government had entered into competition with them that the loaded cable was invented which has given a very much better return. This indicated all too clearly that if the cable companies had, as they hoped, a distinct and clear monopoly they were not prepared to give any better service to the country than they were compelled to do. From some returns which have been furnished by the Postmaster-General, it has been shown that the work of the cable companies and the volume of business done has improved since the wireless has been in operation for the simple reason that they had been forced to lower their rates to meet competition.
I wish to ask hon. Members to give some consideration to another side of the history of this movement, as compared with that side which has been dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for East Bristol. It is not too much to say that there seems to be an atmosphere of corruption about wireless communication and the cable companies without parallel in the history of any commercial movement. During the sittings of the Imperial Conference we have seen what we have seen on two or three other occasions when Imperial Conferences have been sitting, that is a raging, tearing Press campaign intended to depreciate the Government services, and to boost up the Marconi Company and the cable companies. That kind of thing has been repeated on more than one occasion, and it appears to have been something very much in the nature of a ramp to get possession of the wireless service and force up prices.
We have had more than one Imperial Conference on this question at which the British Government have declared themselves in favour of a certain line of control and direction. More than once the Imperial Conference has approved by definite statement that the wireless service should he State-owned and worked by the State. The British Government have agreed to that, and have given expression to it in formal resolutions. Notwithstanding these decisions, there have been at work somewhere behind the scenes powerful influences which have
prevented those decisions from being put into operation. The Imperial Conference of 1911 passed a resolution, and it was a specific and definite decision in favour of a State-owned wireless service. In 1913, a Committee was appointed under the chairmanship of Lord Parker, and that Committee came to a similar conclusion and recommended that this service, in the interests of commerce and the Empire, should be under the control of the State. In 1920, there was the Imperial Wireless Telegraphy Committee set up under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Norman. That Committee was composed of authorities possessing the highest commercial and technical qualifications, and in May of that year they decided in favour of a State-owned wireless service. In August of the same year the Cabinet accepted the Report of that Committee, but, apparently some powerful influences got to work, and we find that in 1921 the matter was referred to the Imperial Communications Committee which considered the matter afresh, after it had been considered by the various bodies to which I have referred. On the 3rd of June, 1921, the Imperial Communications Committee passed the following resolution:
That it would be undesirable under existing conditions to modify the decision of the Cabinet by which the recommendations of the Imperial Wireless Telegraphy Committee were accepted and that the scheme recommended by that Committee be adhered to.
That decision has again and again been confirmed, in unequivocal language, by British Ministers and Government Departments. Since then there have been resolutions signed by representatives of the Admiralty, the Colonial Office, the Treasury, and other Government Departments all confirming that decision, and stating that in the interests of the State and the Empire it is desirable that the control of wireless and its ownership should be in the hands of the Government itself, and yet, in spite of all that, any attempt to give effect to those recommendations was delayed from 1911 to the year 1923, when the Imperial Conference met again. In that year, we had another newspaper campaign, and agitations stirred up in favour of private interests in this matter. I took some part in the newspaper controversy at that time, and the question was discussed
in the House of Commons in 1923 on the Vote for the Postmaster-General's salary. On that occasion it was again confirmed that it was in the interests of the State that this service should be State-owned and controlled. The same influences were again set to work and that decision was set aside. A modified system was put forward in its place, and the Postmaster-General at that time—the present Secretary of State for War—announced in this House, in July, 1923, that the Government were going to give a certain number of licences to private enterprise. On that occasion, Sir Henry Norman stated that the decision announced by the Government had been arrived at without fully consulting Parliament, and he contended that it did not satisfy the decisions of he Imperial Conferences and the decisions of those Committees to which I have referred. Those decisions to a large extent were carried out later by the Government of 1924. It is well to note that the Post Office, up to that time, had borne the burden and expenditure of all these experiments, and had carried them to a successful conclusion. At the Polytechnic on the 13th of this month one of the gentlemen referred to by my hon. Friend, who was a former official of the Post Office, and who has since accepted service with one of the Cable Companies, gave a lecture upon "The Relations of Cables and Wireless," and he said:
In July, 1924, Mr. MacDonald's Government, acting in general conformity with the recommendations of a Committee over which Sir Robert Donald presided in February, 1924, conducted a contract with the Marconi Company for the erection of four beam transmitting and receiving units in this country, for communication with Canada, South Africa, India, and Australia, respectively—the stations in this country to be owned and worked by the Post Office.
5.0 p.m.
That is the position at the present time, and this agitation which is now being set on foot is to get control of the cable companies at this end. Through the ownership by the Post Office of the wireless communications at this end, there is a check on the private companies, and it helps to keep down prices. That, however, does not suit the interests of the private companies; hence the present agitation, not only for the purpose of getting control, but for the purpose of forc-
ing up prices. If there be any doubt about that, let me quote again from the lecture to which I have referred. The lecturer said:
The trouble—if I may use such a word—is that the Post Office charges are materially less than those of the wire services, except in the case of the Anglo-Canadian service.
That is the secret of the agitation that is now going on. What has happened is that a price-cutting war has developed between the Government wireless and the Eastern Associated and other companies. They are awaiting the Report of the Imperial Conference, and pressure is being brought to bear on them in order to get control of these particular services. Speaking on this matter, the lecturer, who has now gone over to these companies, said:
Meanwhile the rate differential continues, and the Report of the Conference is still being awaited. … In the interval the companies concerned have got together and have produced a scheme, for the merger of their interests … contingent on suitable arrangements being made with the British and Dominion Governments; and they have let it be understood twat it is part of these proposals that the Government beam and cable services should be transferred to the merged companies, so that the whole of the Empire services may be worked as a single organisation—subject to suitable financial provisions as between the Governments and the companies; subject also to adequate protection for the public in regard to charges. …
There we have a specific and definite statement that the whole aim and object of the merger is to get possession of the whole of the wireless and cable communications—to get possession of those which are already in the hands of the State. We are threatened, too, by interference from America, the Radio Company of America having stated in very definite terms that they are prepared to take a hand in this if things do not go their way. In connection with that, the lecturer says this:
The simplest and best arrangement, other things being equal, is obviously a general fusion of the two systems"—
that is to say, the American Radio and the English companies—
under common management and operation. In this way each system can be employed for these classes of services to which it is best adapted; administrative and operating economies can be effected; and—the sending and receiving arrangements being under a single control—those difficulties of service which are so apt to spring from
divided management can be avoided. … Without inclusion of the Post Office beam stations, which, as we have seen, are the source of all the difficulty which the State-owned and private cables are experiencing, the proposed merger would be of practically no value so far as Empire communications are concerned.
That is a pretty plain and pretty frank statement that it is only the competition of the State-owned wireless service that will prevent the merger from getting a complete monopoly and working its will with regard to these communications. Further, in the "Wireless World" of the 11th April, there appeared this statement:
Both of the American organisations have extensive cable systems, and both own important wireless patents, and have expressed their intention of establishing trans-oceanic short-wave telegraph and telephone services as an adjunct to their cable systems. Mr. Clarence Mackay, the President of the Mackay Companies, has stated very emphatically that the American merger is not to be regarded as in any sense a reply to the British proposals. It had been under consideration for some time, and its consummation has taken place entirely without reference to the British merger. But the American merger must undoubtedly be considered in conjunction with the British merger. if the Government should put any sort of obstacle in the way of the latter it will be open to the British cable interests to dispose of a large part of their shares to the American Corporation—not perhaps their Empire cables, but other cables which are of hardly less importance from an Imperial point of view; and in any case, if the British companies are to speak on equal terms with their American friends, it is necessary that they should be comparable in standing and resources.
Now we are beginning to see some of the pressure that is being brought to bear on the Government and, indeed, upon the Imperial Conference which is now sitting. Here we have a threat that, if the Government do not come to heel, the American companies and the British merger will come together and will seek to wage war against the British interests in order to get a complete monopoly and control, and it is for that reason that we are asking that a clear statement may be made to the House of the exact position of the British Government in this respect. My hon. Friend has already given some indication of the interests involved, and it seems that a certain amount of rigging of the financial market has taken place. There must be some explanation for the fact that again and again the decisions of the Imperial Conferences and of the
Government have been thwarted in regard to putting into full operation State-owned wireless communications, and now we have this threat of the English merger and the American merger to bring this further pressure to bear.
The other point that I want to raise is as to why it is that always a different point of view is taken by certain Members of this House with regard to the law of competition when the Government is concerned and when private interests are concerned. There are in this House representatives of large multiple firms and monopolies which have attained the position they occupy by carrying on a ruthless competitive warfare against small concerns outside, and which, by reason of great amalgamations of capital, have been able to overthrow smaller tradesmen without any sort of compensation or any regard whatever to their feelings in the matter. The moment, however, that these people find the Government entering into competition with them for the advantage of the community, so that they themselves begin to feel the pressure, they come and ask that the Government should stand off, and that the people themselves, who pay for these services, should allow them to have a free hand to exploit them.
The cable companies should be left either to fight the matter out with the Government or to enter into competition with wireless, as they have done hitherto. The Postmaster-General, in reply to a question which I put to him on the 6th March last, indicated that, since the establishment of the first beam service, the cable rates had been reduced, to Australia from 2s. 6d. to 2s. a word, to South Africa from 2s. to 1s. 8d., and to India from 1s. 8d. to 1s. 5d., and that corresponding reductions had been made in other services. In reply to another question, as to the volume of traffic that had been carried by the beam wireless, he gave certain figures which indicated the extent to which it had been increased, and he further said that he understood that in the case of the cable companies also there had been a corresponding increase of business. That simply meant that, as a result of the keen competition between the State and the cable companies, the cable companies had been forced to lower their prices, which was an advantage to the community, and there had been a greater
volume of business, not only for the beam wireless service, but for the cable companies themselves. Now they are proposing again that they should have a free hand in this respect, in order that they may further exploit the community.
The House, surely, has a right to know and to be assured that, before any agreement is arrived at arising out of the decisions of the Imperial Conference, they will be reported to this House, and ample time will be given to discuss and consider them in all their bearings and ramifications. If there is to be any question of handing over to private enterprise that which is the property of the State and which ought to be used for the advantage of the State and the Empire, let it be fought out on ordinary competitive lines as it would be in ordinary business. These companies now find themselves in precisely the same position in which smaller businesses have teen placed against which this kind of competitive warfare has been carried on. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give some satisfaction to the House in regard to this matter, and will be able to assure us that there is not the ramp that there appears to be, and that the pressure of these great financial interests is not going to intimidate the Government and give rise to anything that may savour of corruption.

Major HILLS: The hon. Member for North Camberwell (Mr. Ammon) has talked of influences at work behind the scenes, and of pressure brought to bear upon the Government. I know nothing about any such influences, and, in view of the atmosphere of suspicion in which the two speakers from the Opposition Benches have involved this subject, I want to say quite clearly that I have no interest in any cable company and no interest in the Marconi Company, and do not speak on behalf of either. I look at this matter as involving two very big questions of public importance, upon which I hold certain definite views, and which I want to put before the House. The first question is, ought all telegraphic communications, whether by cable or by wireless, to be amalgamated, or should the two remain separate and in competition with one another; and the second is, if they are to be merged,
ought they to be operated and owned by the State or by some private interest? I approach this matter entirely from the point of view of the public interest.
On the first question, as to whether there should be co-operation or co-ordination, the case for co-operation is that it increases the incentive to improve the outfit, while competition, it is said, keeps down the prices. I would, however, put it to the two hon. Gentlemen who have spoken from the other side, that we have passed out of the competitive era. Competition was a very valuable incentive at one time, and did things which co-ordination could not have done; but in the modern world, and as things are at present, it is more valuable to get co-ordination, and the reduction of costs that comes from co-ordination, than to have competition. It is hardly necessary to quote what has happened in the case of the railways. There we have gone a long way to eliminate competition, and we have not yet suffered from it.
Perhaps, however, the greatest argument against competition is that, if unrestricted fighting between wireless and cables be allowed, the cables will be destroyed. I believe that that is common ground, for a subsidy to the cables is really out of the question, and, indeed the hon. Member for East Bristol (Mr. W. Baker) spoke very strongly and emphatically about the evils of a subsidy. Without a subsidy, I do not believe the cables could live against the wireless, and yet the cables are essential, as all the world agrees, because they have certain properties that wireless has not. In the first place, there is the difficulty of what is known as fading. and then there are all the advantages of cables as compared with wireless for commercial communications, while, in addition, there is the advantage in war, because, in war, communication by cable both ends of which are owned by the Empire is a valuable thing which no wireless can replace.
The two speakers have both said that if some merger does not take place there is a danger that cables will pass under foreign control. I have no knowledge of that at all. The last speaker said that the cable companies had used this possibility as a means of bringing pressure to bear upon the Government. Of that, again, I am naturally ignorant. Still I
envisage the possibility that if something is not done it may be that the cables will become so unprofitable that they will have to pass into other control. This competition ultimately costs more, and all the cost must fall upon the consumer. I could say a good deal as to what competition costs the railway passengers and people who send goods, for undoubtedly in the competitive era certain things were done by railways that were not economic, and the cost must ultimately fall upon the person who uses the railway. I submit that the public is best served by co-ordination. I know it can be cheaper, and I believe it can be more efficient. Here you have a very similar case to what is happening now with the railways and the roads, two systems which have to work together and which it is most profitable to work in partnership and not in competition with each other. In fact, I believe there is an overwhelming case for combination of some sort. I do not think the speakers opposite would deny that. The hon. Member for East Bristol, who started the discussion, was not very clear about that. I am not sure whether he did not want cables to go out of existence. I believe the majority of Members of the House, including Members of the Opposition, agree that the case for some sort of merger is overwhelming. The economic side is very strong and the operational side is very strong. A merger of some sort there ought to be.
That brings me to my second question. Should the merger be under public ownership or under private enterprise? I do not altogether agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Walthamstow (Sir H. Greenwood). I agree that some sort of non-Government ownership is best, but he apparently pleaded for quite unrestricted private ownership. I do not think that would be best. There are two or three objections to private ownership. In the first place, we are told if you have a merger in private hands progress is stopped, the operation becomes a monopoly, and costs are raised. I do not think the charge that progress is stopped is very valid, but I see a real fear that costs may be raised. That is a far more serious charge than that progress and development will be stopped. I have always held that every public utility company ought to be under
some sort of public control and not allowed the unrestricted use of a valuable monopoly. If you impose that control, and if it is efficient, I believe that far the best way of working these great monopolies. It is an immense service, it is increasing every year, and a decision upon the future of it is a matter of very great importance indeed. I do not know whether the hon. Member for East Bristol included Senatore Marconi in the charges he made against the Marconi Company.

Mr. W. BAKER indicated dissent.

Major HILLS: I am very glad to hear it. I spent some time with Senatore Marconi many years ago, and the impression I formed was that he was out, to give the benefits of science to the public, and I believe his name will go down to posterity as a very great benefactor. It did not strike me that he was a man who had any wish for money or power or fame, except the fame that attends the creator of a very great invention. I suggest that the merger should take the form of a public utility company. What are the points in which the State should exercise control? First of all, it should, directly or indirectly, supervise rates charged by the company, as in the case of the railways. Secondly, I should like to see a limitation of the dividends, the profits not to go to the State but to development. If you look at the history of the Post Office—here I think I shall have the assent of both hon. Members opposite—you cannot fail to be aware that development has been stopped because of the exigencies of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If more of the profits had been allowed to go back into the business, we should now have a better and a more profitable service. The third point is that certainly in the event of War, the Government ought to step in and operate the whole system. I think that is common ground with all of us.
Lastly we come to this. Attacks have been made on the Marconi Company. I only know what every public man knows about the Marconi Company. There are some elements in its history which would not commend themselves to a man who observed financial rectitude. I will put it mildly. There are some things in the history of the Company of which we
cannot approve. And so it ought to be a term of any grant to a public utility company that there should be a company, respectable and responsible, managed by people in whom the public has confidence and possessed of adequate financial powers. If that were so I should be in favour of the beam service being transferred to such a company and the whole of the wireless and cable operations of the Empire being worked as a single whole. By controlled operations such as I have outlined, you would get the cheapest and the most efficient service.
May I take the opposite side of the case and meet a few of the objections which I think would be made to Government ownership. First of all, there is the difficulty of finding the money. It is a very real difficulty. Even more than that, there is the risk of finding the money. If you look at the history of public enterprises, you will see that a lot of money has been lost. A great deal of the expenditure on tramways has been lost, and that is the ratepayers. If a private individual or company chooses to run a tramway and lose its money, no one cares except the people who have lost the money, but it is a very different thing to lose the money of the ratepayers, and are we quite certain that money will not be lost here? It is only yesterday that we heard about the beam system. Who knows that something else may not supervene? I do not want the State to embark its millions in transactions which may be risky. For these two reasons I am very strongly in favour of a controlled public utility company. Lastly I would ask hon. Members' careful attention to this. If you admit that unity is the thing to aim at, it means that the cable and the wireless must be operated by a single party. If it is to be the Government, the Government must take over the cables. Do hon. Members opposite really mean that? My right hon. Friend below me talked about wireless being a rising market. I do not think he would say the same about cable shares. Unless you can control the cable as well as the wireless you cannot get a unified system. I hope the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ogmore (Mr. Hartshorn), will tell us whether his party are in favour of a unified system and, if they are, how they mean to deal with the question of cables.
I am not here to defend the Marconi Company. To my thinking, the decision of this question does not rest on the deeds or misdeeds of the Marconi Company. It is a very big question of public interest, and the effect of it will be felt for a long time to come. It does not turn at all on Marconi's record. It does not turn on the fact, if it is a fact, that certain speculators have either gained or guessed information and that shares in certain companies have risen. Nor does it depend on the fact that the operation will be profitable for the public utility company that I suggest. I am not afraid of private profit if the public interest is served thereby. It is my very clear belief that if the State had made motor cars they could not have made cars as cheap as Mr. Morris makes them, and, in spite of making them cheaply, Mr. Morris has made a fortune. But if the fact that a fortune can be made brings those sort of trades into operation there ought to be some public benefit. I am not afraid if I am told that there will be a profit in this undertaking. I suggest that the profit should be limited. The real thing that I want is an efficient service that gives us cheap and good communication, and that, I believe, you will get by combining all the telegraphic means of communication into one single company.

Mr. OTHO NICHOLSON: The hon. Member for East Bristol (Mr. W. Baker) who opened the Debate stated that there were six separate authorities dealing with the telegraphic and telephonic communications of the British Empire. I believe that there are really eight, and there is no single authority responsible for the co-ordination and the development of these various services to make them of the greatest commercial, strategic and political advantage to the Empire. The need for some such authority is absolute. First of all, because Empire unity depends on rapid and efficient communication between the home Government and the Dominion Governments and between the United Kingdom and our Dominions. Secondly, because there are other countries and particularly the United States of America, who are developing telephonic and telegraphic communications to such an extent that I believe they are a. danger to this country if we wish to maintain control of these communications. And, thirdly, because so rapid and ex-
tensive have been these developments that the future outlook is so unstabilised that we shall be left behind unless we have unified control. We must have some unified control that is strong enough and courageous enough, should the circumstances arise to scrap the old system and introduce the new. Empire unity demands prompt and efficient telegraphic service. I believe that that is an accepted fact. We cannot regard the Dominions as vast lands thinly populated merely separated from us by thousands of miles of sea. Whether they like it or not, they are drawn into world politics, and the home Government cannot ignore them and must consult with them in all questions of international politics. To do so with promptitude and dispatch, they must have the latest and most efficient form of communication. This applies more particularly to this country than to any other country owing to the great distances which separate the home Government and the Governments of our Colonies. Therefore, I say there is not only great need for a single controlling authority but a very pressing one.
As regards the question of other countries developing wireless telegraphic communications, the most active of which is the United States, recently concessions have been obtained for a wireless service between the Argentine and Spain by an American company, and again an American company proposes to establish a service between the Pacific and Japan and the Far East. That same company has purchased the Sayville Wireless Station, which until lately belonged to the American Government, in order to set up communication with European countries. The American company has also obtained control of the telegraph communications between America and Spain, and I believe I am right in saying that American financiers to a very large extent control the radio and telegraph companies of Germany. These developments have the approval and the support of the American Government. The American Government have set up a Federal Radio Commission for the purpose of allotting short wave lengths to American companies, to the naval and military authorities, and to others who are interested in America. Already, a very large number of these short wave lengths have been allotted, and the beam system is a system which is worked on
comparatively short wave lengths. There are not more than 500 or 600 wave lengths available for the whole of the world communication and one American company has already had allotted to it, has applied for, and states that it requires at least 225 of these wave lengths. The deduction to be drawn from these facts is that we have to be very careful indeed to see that we get our proper proportion of those wave lengths.
In view of the importance of telegraphic communications to the Empire, it ought not to be left to the individual action of eight different authorities to obtain and maintain an efficient service. This responsibility should be in the hands of a single controlling organisation of the whole Empire. In the minds of the past generation, the submarine cable was considered to be the last word in scientific invention. Only three years ago we thought that the large high-powered wireless stations were equally the last word in scientific invention, but we made a mistake. Hardly before these stations had become stabilised they were superseded by this new system known as the beam, and the beam system, I believe, will be used entirely in the future for all communications of any distance from this country. The beam system has already passed the experimental stage. It is in operation as far as the Empire is concerned between this country and Canada, South Africa, Australia and India, and these four beam circuits are carrying 30,000,000 words per year, and are capable of carrying five times that amount.
The beam system has many advantages over the cables and the long-wave wireless stations. First of all, let us take the question of costs. Every hon. Member knows what a costly thing it is to lay down a submarine cable. We all know what an enormous amount of money the large Post Office station at Rugby costs the taxpayers of this country—a matter of £500,000. On the other hand, these beam stations can be erected for a matter of £100,000. As regards the speed, the cable is only capable of transmitting messages at a rate of approximately 45 words a minute. The large long-wave wireless stations are also limited in the speed with which they can transmit messages, probably somewhere between 20 and 30 words a minute,
largely owing to the enormous current with which they have to deal. The beam system, which is dealing with a comparatively small amount of energy, is able to transmit messages at the rate of 200 words per minute, and under the most adverse conditions can keep up an average speed of 100 words per minute for the whole 24 hours. I understand that very shortly these beam stations will he capable of increasing their speed to probably something like 600 words a minute.
One right hon. Member has already given the House the rates compared with the cables and wireless. In three cases, the rates of the beam wireless are 4d. a word less than those of the cable. It is only in regard to a Canadian service where the two rates remain the same. With regard to the question of efficiency—cables versus wireless—cables sometimes develop faults, and, when they do, it is an extremely costly business to send a ship out, first of all, to drag for the cable, and then to mend it. The normal sort of breakdown which one gets in a wireless station is one which is comparatively easy to repair—probably a burnt-out valve. If it is something larger, such as a burnt-out armature, there is probably a spare one which can quickly be put into commission. The question of secrecy is one which is always held un on behalf of the cables as opposed to wireless, and it is one with which I do not agree. We must remember that these beam stations can transmit at the present moment, as I have already said, at the rate of 200 words a minute. That in itself makes it an extremely difficult thing for anybody to intercept. There is a new invention known, I believe, as the cryptograph which automatically codes and decodes any message and is capable of altering that code every sentence—if you like, every word; if you like still more, every alternate letter. That is going to make it practically impossible for any person to decode these messages.
There is the question of the narrowness of the beam. Unless you happen to be in the path of the beam, it is very nearly impossible to intercept these messages. May I give the House an illustration of what I mean? A little time ago messages were being sent by the beam wireless stations from
South America to London, as the focus point. Messages were received in London strong enough to be automatically recorded, but those same messages were only audible on earphones to the German station which was listening for them. They were not strong enough to work the automatic machinery. With a slight adjustment of the aerial in order to widen the beam those messages were capable of being automatically recorded both in London and Berlin. No doubt in future it will be possible considerably to narrow the beam and, by doing so, increase the secrecy.
As regards the future development of the beam, I believe that if the stations were in the hands of private enterprise, we should find that they would develop very much more quickly than they will in the hands of the State. It is possible at the present time to turn these beam stations into wireless telephony stations, and at the same time as you are sending messages on the Morse code it is possible to superimpose the human voice on the same wave. We have the same thing going on at the Post Office Rugby station, and they charge us £5 a minute for communication with America.

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Viscount Wolmer): The charge is now £3.

Mr. NICHOLSON: The Assistant Postmaster-General informs me that the charge has been reduced to £3 It is time that it was reduced still further. It is possible to introduce telephony to beam stations and to work it at a handsome profit £1 per minute. There is a new invention which I hope will be introduced into the beam system—an invention for the transmitting of photographs. Perhaps that does not appeal to hon. Members unless I explain that messages themselves can be photographed and facsimile messages can be sent over the wireless. In a comparatively short time we may be reading that the full 24 page issue of the "Daily Mail." complete with picture page at the end, will be published every day simultaneously in every capital of our Dominions

Mr. DUNCAN: What about the "Daily Herald"?

Mr. NICHOLSON: The "Daily Herald" will have the same possibilities if only the Government will give facilities
to their beam stations. For the purpose of development, and of watching the development of experimenting, particularly, one unified control authority is essential, on account (1) of the importance of Imperial communications, (2) of the competition for world control of wireless telegraphy communications, and (3) of the rapid development and instability of the wireless telegraph companies, at any rate, at the present time. The question which arises is whether the Post Office should be that body, and I ask myself, does the Post Office record in relation to inland telegraphs inspire confidence? One has only to read the Hardman Lever Committee's Report where it refers to:
The atmosphere of inertia and the lack of resiliency of the telegraph service, and the unsuitability of Civil Service conditions to apply to a business undertaking,
to realise that, in their opinion, the Post Office are not a fit and proper body to undertake this work.
Does the Post Office inspire confidence with regard to wireless telegraphy? I would refer the House to the history of their Rugby Station—a monument of lack of foresight on the part of the Post Office engineers. That station was put up for the express purpose, as I understood it, of communication with our Colonies at any time when we wished to do so. What do we find this station doing at the present time? Whenever I have listened to it, I have never heard it doing anything other than sending messages to ships at sea, most of them Press messages. The service which at one time it had established with Cairo has now been taken over by the beam station. Not long ago, the Post Office told us that the only way to create efficient wireless telegraph communication with the Empire was by a series of short steps, or relay stations.
I do not believe that the Post Office has the necessary vision. One has only to refer to the question of the Pacific cable. The Pacific Cable Board is composed entirely of the representatives of Governments. They laid down a cable which cost £2,750,000, and every Government agreed to it except the Government of Canada. Not one of them except perhaps the Government of Canada
realised the possibilities of the beam system. One hon. Member in this House, during the Debate on the Pacific Cable Board, referred to the Pacific cable as a very valuable asset. I think the right hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Webb) referred to it as "the most successsful social enterprise that could possibly be imagined," and yet to-day we are taking steps to consider what we can do to save this successful Socialistic enterprise from private enterprise competition.

Mr. AMMON: Surely, the hon. Member is mistaken. It is from Post Office competition or public competition that we are seeking to save it. The wireless system belongs to the Post Office.

Mr. NICHOLSON: I think I am right in saying that the Post Office are not the only people who own beam stations from which competition may come. I think the Marconi Company have stations, and I think the Americans are setting up short-wave stations. The Secretary of the Post Office Workers' Union, speaking the other day at Weston-super-Mare, said that the beam service was the most astounding verdict in favour of State control as against private control. I think that is a most astounding claim. Who experimented with the beam? Was it the Government? No. It was a private individual. Who made the beam a practical service? Was it the State? No. It was a private company. Who installed the beam stations? Was it a Government Department? No. It was a private company. Who put these stations in order? Again, it was a private company, and not the Government. The State did not take any interest in the matter until it was conclusively proved that the stations were capable of carrying on an efficient service. It was then that they took them over. The beam telegraph system is a triumph of private enterprise. Finally, as against Government control and interference, I would point out that every other country has deliberately allowed the beam system to remain in the hands of private enterprise. Why should this country be handicapped by allowing these systems of communication to be taken over by the State?

Mr. PILCHER: After the authoritative and comprehensive speech to which we have just listened I am very reluctant to participate in the Debate, but there is one point, not very difficult or involved, which I should like to put to my right hon. Friend. It relates wholly to the position of the consumer. Up to the present time we seem to have been discussing only the Government and the companies concerned. Surely, the essence of a successful beam system is the economy and the cheapness at which communications can be purveyed to the public overseas and in this country. I gather from Sir Evelyn Murray's book that the cost of each of the four beam stations was about £60,000. Less than £250,000 has been spent on the four beam wireless stations. I have been trying to work out, from statistics which the Postmaster-General gave to the House, the amount of work that the four stations are doing at the present time. In the week ending 26th February the number of messages sent out of this country by beam was returned at 35,000. On an average of, say, 20 words per message and 52 weeks a year, I come to the conclusion that something like 35,000,000 words are being sent out of this country through these four beam stations every year.
I am told that the actual operative costs of the four beam stations may not be very much more than another £250,000. The economy thus resulting to the overseas consumer already is quite prodigious. Of the 35,000 messages that went out during the week mentioned, 15,000 went to India. Working on that basis for a whole year, I calculate that something like 15,000,000 are being sent to India by beam. If only 20 per cent. of these messages were sent at the full rates of 1s. 8d., which used to prevail before the beam system began, instead of the rate of 1s. 1d. which now prevails, there is a, saving to the Indian consumer alone for the last eight months—the service to India only started last September—of something like £100,000. Obviously, this invention is only at its beginning. The figures of the expansion in the use of the cable which followed on the inauguration of the Pacific cable in 1902 were prodigious, and if the beam system results
in anything like the same progressive expansion the ultimate economy, particularly if the cost of sending beam messages is going to come down, as I hope it will, will play a very considerable part in the recovery of our economic position generally.
6.0 p.m.
It is from great inventions of this kind and from radio activity and the advantage that the public get from these scientific discoveries that we are going to recover our economic position during the coming years, in the same way that Europe in the nineteenth century recovered after the tragedy of the Peninsular Wars and Waterloo. I do not see how on the basis of the capitalisation which has been published in the newspapers, a matter of £54,000,000 as the total capital of the merger group, anything like real economic rates for beam dispatch are to be maintained. As far as I can make out, this capitalisation is based on the idea of safeguarding in perpetuity the Eastern Telegraph group and the Marconi Company a minimum, not a maximum, by way of a dividend of £2,800,000. This project seems to aim at the stabilisation of a dividend return on the capital of the group at the position in 1926–27, before this competition had actually begun. If that is the case, then a very great hindrance to beam development is inevitable. I should be very glad indeed if any hon. Member can give me some explanation as to how we are to get out of this quandary. Let me add this rider. I myself have not the faintest sympathy with national management. We have been reminded in the Hardman Lever Report of its effect on the existing telephone system, and the fact that the Telephone Department has made a cumulative loss of £20,000,000 during the last 15 years. I am not in favour of State management, but I do not think this system would be much better managed in private hands. I hope we shall get an assurance from the Government that before this proposal is ultimately ratified and accepted they will make absolutely certain that the consumer of cables, that is the sender and the recipient, will be the ultimate beneficiaries of the great advantages which this system seems to hold out.

Captain FRASER: If I understand the hon. Member for Penryn and Falmouth (Mr. Filcher) correctly, he seems to fear that the necessity for maintaining dividends upon the immense capital invested in cables might cripple at its inception any unified scheme, whether it is under State control or in the hands of a private company. He fears this because cables are beginning to lose their traffic. He has ignored, I think, the fact that one of the great advantages of the merger between wireless and cables at the present time is that the cable companies not only own plant and machinery which convey messages across great distances, but own also an extraordinary complicated human machine, as well as buildings and an organisation, which enable them to collect and handle messages. Their tradition and their length of life have made it possible for them to build up machinery which is an extremely valuable asset from the point of view of the collection and handling of news and messages. The wireless companies, being younger, have not the same asset. From the point of view of the wireless companies there is something to be gained by the merger because of these facilities owned by the cable companies. It is a marriage of two entities, one of which owns the best method of transmitting over vast distances, and the other the best method of collecting and handling messages. It is not a one-sided bargain.
I plead with hon. Members on the Labour benches not to allow their prejudices and their political views on the question of State or private ownership to enter too much into the consideration of this question. I believe that their political beliefs sometimes outweigh their business judgment. They are interested at all times in teaching the electorate to believe in nationalisation. Their desire to do something in this direction is a stronger motive with them than any other. By pressing, as they so persistently do, for every enterprise to be nationalised they are serving a political doctrine rather than the needs of the country, and I plead with them to take, if it is possible, as reasonable a view of this proposition of placing cables and wireless service in private hands as some of us adopted with regard to broad-
casting. In that case there were extreme difficulties in the way of conducting it by private enterprise, but some of us on this side, including His Majesty's Government, quite frankly adopted the line which, having regard to the special circumstances of the case, appeared to be the only possible line. We were met with the argument, both here and in the country, that we were abandoning our belief in private enterprise, but we were quite prepared to do what we thought was right.
I hope, when the whole facts of this matter are debated later on, that hon. Members of the Labour benches will take as open-minded a view on this matter as we did on that occasion. They may say that, having put broadcasting under some form of public control, we must be logical and do the same in this case, but there is this essential difference. Broadcasting can only get its revenue by one of two methods. First, by letting out its time according to an hourly schedule to advertisers, a procedure against which we all revolted as it would be most undesirable, or to use the machinery of the State for the collection of a tax. None of these arguments applies in this case. The Companies, however controlled, will obtain their revenue not by means of a State machinery for the collection of a tax, but by charges on the individual when they want to use the services. I hope the Government, while safeguarding the public interest in the matter of rates and giving the commercial and business community every hope that the creation of a monopoly will not lead to an increase but to a decrease in tariffs, will place no obstacle in the way of a merger, convenient and profitable to both parties, and which will ultimately be in the best interests of the country and the Empire.
One last word on the general subject of nationalisation. The hon. Member for East Bristol (Mr. W. Baker), in a rather scathing kind of way, suggested that we were going to hand an enterprise belonging to the State over to people to make profits out of it, and he said that the interest of the shareholders was going to be considered rather than the national interest. I do not pretend to be quoting his words, but his attitude of mind was something on these lines. He is not pre-
pared to allow anybody to make profits, and if anybody does make profits then it must be against the public interest. Quite possibly he believes this, but, if that is the case, it shows to what a lamentable state of affairs we have reached. In my opinion it is of the utmost advantage to the country that the utmost profits should be made in every enterprise. When they are made there is ample field for taxation, there is a resilient revenue, money coming for investment, and also for development. These are the conditions under which we get development, and it is under a system by which profits are made, as in the case of these communications, that you can expect a large amount of research, initiative and progress.
The hon. Member for East Bristol by omission suggested that we were proposing to take away from the Post Office this beam system which was so profitable, and was going to be so much more profitable in the future. He did not explain to the House that it would be possible for the Government, when negotiating for the disposal of the beam system, to negotiate also for certain cables on which they were losing money; that it might be possible for the State to make an arrangement by which in parting with a thing it likes it might also part with a thing which will become more and more a millstone round its neck. Our best interests will be served if the merger takes place. Not only has the business community in this country been impressed with the advantages of private enterprise, but in Germany, which is the home of Socialism, there has been a strong tendency during the past seven or eight years for railways and other services, which have been State-controlled, to be placed as far as possible under private management.
The evidence we have had in the Hardman Lever Report, and the very interesting speech by the hon. Member for West-minister (Mr. O. Nicholson), shows that Government management, however well-intentioned it may be, is very slow, does not provide the same initiative, the same desire for progress, and the same willingness to take risks as private enterprise.
The most extraordinary developments which have been made in the beam system have not arisen from Post Office laboratories. No great development in technique, in telegraphs or telephones, has arisen in Post Office laboratories. It is only by allowing private enterprise to make profits, by recognising that profit making is not a curse but is a national advantage, by appreciating that the general wealth of the community and better wages are associated with profit making, and by dropping the view that anyone who makes a profit is doing something that is anti-social, that we shall ever get near to a sane view of this matter.
I have but one concluding remark to make, and that is in relation to the Post Office staff. Many will be in agreement with the remark of the hon. Gentleman who opened this Debate, that it is undesirable, perhaps, that highly-placed persons should take posts in companies with which they have possibly been associated; but I think very few will agree with the suggestion that the liberty of the civil servant should be so interfered with that no matter how humble his position may have been in the Post Office he is not to take a job in any outside company with which he has had any dealings whatever. My own view is that the civil servant should be free, as is every other individual, to take whatever job is offered to him and, if I may say so without offence, I think there is a lot of cant and hypocrisy in the suggestion that other people would not do exactly the same thing if they had the opportunity. I hope that the Government will not make the fatal error of submitting to the clamour of a very few persons whose principal interest in this matter is political, by denying to these great companies, whose record of service to the community in peace and war for one or two generations has been a splendid one, whatever blots there may have been upon their financial arrangements—I hope that the Government will not stand in the way of the merger and the creation of some organism, upon which Governments can be represented, which will manage and control these vast services with the
freedom and the possibility of progress which I think are associated only with private enterprise.

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): The House must have listened to this Debate with no little interest. I find myself answering in my position as Chairman of the Conference which has been called to deal with this problem. As to why I should be the Chairman of that Conference, I can only say that as a Member of the Cabinet I was told off to do the job and, being well disciplined, I undertook it. The Conference has been sitting now for some time. The origin of the Conference, as the House knows, was the fact that a certain situation had arisen in the communications of the Empire because of the competition between the cable and wireless. Its origin was also due to the fact that the Governments of Canada and Australia recognised that there was a problem which must be solved, and, anxious as we are and have always been in this country that these common problems should be solved after careful discussion by all the Governments concerned, that was in itself a reason for calling the Conference. The terms of reference to the Conference were:
To examine the situation which has arisen as a result of the competition of the beam wireless and cable services, to report thereon and to make recommendations with a view to a common policy being adopted by the various Governments concerned.
Let me say a word at this point as to the personnel. The hon. Member for East Bristol (Mr. W. Baker), who opened the Debate, drew attention to the fact that the Prime Minister, in answering a Supplementary Question after reference to myself when sitting on the Front Bench, gave an answer which appeared to be contradictory. I take the fullest responsibility for having at a moment's notice said to the Prime Minister that Mr. Lenton was a technical adviser. I regret having said that. But in fact Mr. Lenton was, in the main, a technical adviser to his Government, because he is the Postmaster-General and Secretary of the Department of Posts and Telegraphs. It is true, of course, that he was
not a Minister but was representing the Government of the Union of South Africa. Mr. Lenton left for South Africa on 4th May, and Mr. Eales was nominated in his place. Then with regard to other members who attended the Conference, Mr. L. J. Gaboury left for Canada on 10th February and Commander Edwards left on 13th April. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there is nothing peculiar in the changes that have taken place and that in fact the Conference continues to operate.
The first meeting of the Conference was held on 16th January, and so far there have been 30 meetings of the full Conference. I can assure the House that the Conference is still in being. A word as to the procedure which we set up in order to deal with this matter. The Conference had to obtain the fullest information possible as to the various factors bearing upon the problem—financial, commercial, economic and strategic. To this end 79 memoranda have been circulated. Many of these are exhaustive in character and naturally require very careful consideration. They contain many intricate facts, figures and details as to relationships between the various bodies concerned. The Conference also invited parties interested in the conduct of communications, both wireless and cable, to make such representations as they wished, and the Conference heard evidence from 11 witnesses, representing the following undertakings: The Eastern and Associated Telegraph Company, the Indo-European Telegraph Company, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, the Canadian Marconi Company, the Wireless Telegraph Company of South Africa and the Indian Radio Telegraph Company. The Directors of the Amalgamated Wireless, Australasia, Limited, considered that for proper representation to be made on their behalf it would be necessary that someone thoroughly acquainted with their affairs in Australia should come to this country, but this apparently could not be done within four months and, of course, the Conference was unable to suspend its deliberations for this purpose. The Conference also received deputa-
tions from the Empire Press Union and the Federation of British Industries, and the London Chamber of Commerce submitted resolutions relating to the problem before the Conference.
The House will see that during the period that the Conference has been sitting it has not been idle. The problem before the Conference is admittedly not an easy one to unravel. It has involved considerable research and much concentrated study on the part of all the representatives of the Dominions. This work has entailed the consideration not only of how the affairs of this country will be affected, but what repercussions there are likely to be in Australia or Canada or India or elsewhere, not leaving out the Colonies. One has seen, of course, that during the sitting of the Conference there was announced the merger between the Eastern Telegraph Company and the Marconi Company. I would like to emphasise the fact that for this proposed merger the Government had no responsibility and have no responsibility at the present time. This merger was made subject to satisfactory arrangements being made with the British Government and the Governments of the Dominions and India. The possible reactions of this merger on the problem referred to the Conference have, of course, to he examined in great detail, and that has necessarily been the subject of conversations between the representatives of the Conference and the companies concerned.
Now as to the future. The hon. Member for East Bristol desired at the outset to have certain fears relieved. He thought that certain conclusive resolutions had been reached by the Conference and that the House was being deprived of the opportunity of considering this problem before the solution had become a fait accompli. These communications are still proceeding, and I am unable to say at the present time when they may be brought to a conclusion. I think it will be appreciated that the Conference is empowered only to make recommendations to the Governments concerned, and that the Conference cannot of itself come to operative
conclusions. It will be for the Governments concerned—this Government and the Dominion Governments and the Government of India—to decide what they are going to do and what action shall be taken upon any recommendations which the Conference may make to them. In these circumstances it is quite impossible to say how soon or when decisions may be made. But I would say quite plainly that before any definitive action is taken the matter will be brought before this House. That, I hope, will reassure any of those who may have doubts upon the matter. So far as I, as Chairman of the Conference, am concerned—and I am sure I am speaking for all the members of the Conference—I say that our only desire is to come to a conclusion as soon as we can properly do so, with due regard to the intricacy of the subject we have to consider.

Mr. HARTSHORN: I understand it is desired to proceed with other business and I shall not detain the House long on this subject. We are pleased to have an undertaking from the right hon. Gentleman that nothing of a definite character will be done in connection with this matter until it has been brought before the House. That being the case, anything I have to say can be deferred until that occasion arises. There is only one aspect of the subject to which I would call attention, because it has been referred to by so many different speakers. The Labour party have been urged by speaker after speaker in this Debate not to allow their political prejudices to interfere with their business judgment, and not to press this question of the State ownership of the beam system to the detriment of business considerations. All I want to say on that point is that the beam system was introduced and the contract was entered into when the Labour party were in office. For 14 years prior to that time successive Governments had been dealing with the question of Imperial wireless. During those 14 years various Committees and Commissions sat, and there were many discussions in Imperial Conferences on the matter. All the Governments concerned, all the Committees and Commissions and the Imperial Conferences laid
it down that this great Imperial service, as far as home stations were concerned, should be in the hands of the State. That was what was laid down all along, with the exception of a few months during the Government of Mr. Bonar Law, when an attempt was made to compromise with the Marconi people on another basis.
Apart from that, Parliament has laid it down from beginning to end, that this service should be in the hands of the State. When we took the matter in hand, we only pursued the policy and followed the line adopted by previous Governments, at least on that question. I do not want to go into the question that has been raised as to the success or nonsuccess of State enterprise. It is sufficient to say that this Debate has revealed one fact at any rate, namely, that the whole question of this merger, the whole subject of this Debate and the reason why we cannot have a definite reply from the Government yet all arise from the fact that the beam service has been so successful that the other people cannot compete with it. That is the real trouble, and I congratulate the Postmaster-General and his staff on the very successful business they have made of it. In any case, as far as we are concerned, we sincerely hope that the facts and figures submitted during this Debate will be taken very seriously into consideration by the Conference which, I understand, is still deliberating before they come to a conclusion and before the matter is again brought up in this House. I think it would be a great pity if, as a result of these negotiations, the impression were allowed to get abroad that this Government, when there is a clash between the national interests and the interests of private enterprise, are on the side of the capitalists instead of on the side of the nation and the Empire. We have been fearful that that was likely to happen, but I hope, as a result of this Debate and the further consideration which will be given to the matter when it is again brought before the House of Commons, it will appear that the suspicions entertained on this side of the House are not well-founded, but ill-founded.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

(10TH ALLOTTED DAY.)

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1928 [Progress].

Considered in Committee.

[Mr. JAMES HOPE in the Chair.]

CLASS III.

PRISONS, ENGLAND AND WALES.

Motion made, and Question proposed:
That a sum, not exceeding £473,969, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1929, for the Expenses of the Prisons in England and Wales."—[Note.—£,000,600 has been voted on account.]

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I beg to move to reduce the Vote by £100.
In addressing myself to the prisons section of the work of the Home Office, it may be interesting if I point out at the outset that, by a coincidence, this subject falls to be discussed here on the birthday anniversary of one of the mast notable prison reformers this country has ever known, Mrs. Elizabeth Fry. I propose to make one or two remarks this evening which I hope may not be regarded as carping criticisms, but rather as helpful suggestions; and before proceeding to the discussion of the Vote itself, it would be well to analyse the problem which confronts the Home Office and those who are responsible for the prison population of this country. I do not desire to blame anybody for the omission, but I would say in passing that it is a little unfortunate that we have not to hand the report of the Prison Commissioners for last year. No doubt, upon that report we could have based effective criticism; but sufficient data are available already to warrant hon. Members on this side of the Committee in asking that this Vote should be put down for discussion. As I have said already, in order to deal with the subject of our prison population, the way it is treated and the way it is instructed and educated, we must first understand the nature of the problem. It is not generally known that the daily prison population in this
country at present averages a little over 10,000; and those 10,000 men and women are all under the care of the Home Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman has therefore a great duty to perform. I shall in a few moments say what I think of the manner in which he performs that task. The Home Secretary speaks occasionally. I do not know if it would be right to say that he speaks too often; but, at any rate, he has delivered himself on one or two occasions indicating his policy towards this prison population and his views on their treatment.
I imagine that the prison population of Great Britain, taken in relation to the civilian population, is probably the lowest in the world; and that prison population has been steadily declining for the last decade or two. To emphasise that fact, I may point out, that in 1878 it stood at 20,000, and that at a time when the civilian population was much lower than it is to-day. With an average figure to-day of about 10,000 I think it can be claimed that we are making considerable progress in reducing the numbers of the men and women who are incarcerated in this country. I should say, however, that it must not be assumed that we are behaving better merely because the prison population is declining. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) will understand me when I say that the probation system accounts in part for the decline in our prison population. A decade or two ago, men and women could be sent to prison for delivering political speeches; but we are now immune.

Mr. ERNEST BROWN: This is not Trafalgar Square.

Mr. DAVIES: I do not want to make it that. The probation system has undoubtedly tended to reduce the numbers of prisoners. There was a slight increase from the year 1918 onwards, but it has been declining recently. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will be able to give us the figures up to date, because it would be interesting to know whether the number is still falling. What, therefore, is the nature and what are the dimensions of the problem? To get a proper perspective of it we must remember that the number of persons receiving sentences
of not more than two weeks fell from 109,000 in 1908 to 14,000 odd in 1926. I do not want to give the Committee too many figures because I am anxious to dwell on something more interesting than statistics. I wish, therefore, to ask the Under-Secretary whether the Home Office and the Prison Commissioners are satisfied with the present prison buildings. I understood that we had of late developed new ideas as to the treatment, the education and the work of the people inside our prisons, as a result of which the present buildings were found to be totally incapable of meeting the present requirements. The Under-Secretary will probably be able to tell the Committee whether there has been any improvement at all in this respect; and in view of the fact that we are continually closing old prisons, whether the saving thus effected could not be utilised in the provision of more up-to-date institutions.
There has been a great change in the outlook, not only of Governments, but of the community as a whole towards these men and women. Coercion, intimidation, the infliction of pain on the prisoner—all have gone, I hope, for good. The idea prevailing now is that the one thing which you do to the offender against the law is to deprive him of his liberty. One gentleman who is very interested in this problem has very aptly stated that although a man has committed an offence against the law, he is still a human being, and his human instincts are still there. It would not be right for the State merely to take charge of the offender after his conviction and not make any appeal to his better instincts, by means of education and exhortation, with a view to turning him out a better man than he was when he went into prison. That, I think, is the trend of modern thought. I would call the attention of the Under-Secretary to something which has transpired recently in connection with the educational work under our prison system. I put a question a little while ago to the Home Secretary, and I did not like the right hon. Gentleman's reply. I do not like all his replies, by the way. The right hon. Gentleman rather complained because I raised a point as to something, almost in the nature of a riot, which transpired at Parkhurst. I myself went to see Parkhurst in 1924. I went there as a visitor [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]
—though some of my hon. Friends may suggest I should have been there on other grounds. I went there on this occasion as a visitor, and I was astonished to find that there was only one person of my own nationality in the whole place. I may say that I was not entirely satisfied that he ought to have been there at all.
I understood that the Prison Commissioners had actually arranged with the education authority in the Isle of Wight—I am open to correction—a curriculum of teaching and instruction to the prisoners in Parkhurst convict prison; but there was a change of Governor there, I think, towards the end of 1926, and with that change these facilities for education were withdrawn, with the result that there was a strong protest by the prisoners. What I want to know is what is the reason, when the trend of modern thought is in favour of trying to reclaim these people, to improve their behaviour, that induced the Prison Commissioners to take away educational facilities for the convicts in Parkhurst prison? I should also like to ask if those facilities have been reinstated since. It is very necessary in this Debate—and if the Committee should forget everything else I hope I may be able to impress it with this one word—that we should find some means of co-ordinating the work of education inside the prisons, and that educational work should not be exclusively carried on by the Home Office and the Prison Commissioners. I would very much like to see the Board of Education and the local education authorities brought into this sphere. After all, the task of the Home Office is to deal with the offender as a prisoner, but the task of education is to train men and women, and, if possible, to alter their nature; and it seems to me that if the Home Office would consult with the Board of Education and the local education authorities where these institutions are situated, a great deal of good might be done. I have touched upon what occurred at Parkhurst prison; and that, so far as I know, is the only serious outbreak of indiscipline that has taken place for the last few years in connection with our prison system.
The next point that I want to raise is in connection with an organisation to which the British Prison Commissioners are
attached; and, if I may say so, I have always been enamoured of the very good work that has been done by the International Penitentiary Commission. I want to know whether that Commission cannot go very much further than merely discussing problems of prison reform. For instance, is it not possible for this body to collect information, giving us data as to the prison population of other countries, so that we can compare what is transpiring in our own country with what is happening elsewhere? International information on public health, education, warfare, and so on, can all be obtained; but, in this connection, I have never been able to put my hand anywhere on information that would enable me to compare our own prison system with what is happening elsewhere. I would like to know, for instance, what is happening in the prisons of Italy, of Bulgaria—

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: There is no capital punishment in Italy.

Mr. DAVIES: They have apparently got something worse than that—not that I support capital punishment, by any means. It would be very interesting indeed if we had such data; and information would be very helpful to us, too, on the point raised by my hon. and gallant Friend as to what is happening in other countries with regard to capital punishment. I would like to know, for example, whether the abolition of capital punishment in one country has tended to increase crime; and whether on the other hand, the continuation of that system has done anything at all to diminish crime in any country. I think the point is worth pursuing, that the International Penitentiary Commission should continue its work, not only of discussing these vital problems, but that it should secure the information that I have mentioned, to be tabled before the Parliaments of the world. I do not think that would be impossible; but if it cannot be done through the International Penitentiary Commission, I think the Home Office ought to see whether it could not be supplied by the League of Nations.
I turn now to another aspect of our prison system. As I said, the population figures have been reduced to such dimensions that we ought to be
able to treat it better than it has been in the past. When you have a mass of convicts in your prisons it is more difficult, I suppose, to deal with them than when the number is smaller; but now, when we have about 10,000 as a daily average, I think the Home Office and the Prison Commission ought to do something more than they are doing by way of individual training. It is not sufficient, in my view, merely to bring people into these institutions and to regard them as subjects for punishment. I hope that punishment will be wiped clean out from our ideas in relation to this problem.
I pass now to what appears to me to be the most important point that I can possibly raise this evening. I went down to Wandsworth some years ago, and saw the very good work that was being done there by psychologists, pathologists, and so forth, in studying each individual case—not the old criminal, who probably is regarded by most people as beyond hope, though nobody really is beyond hope, unless it be some of the medical profession and our politicians! There is really a great amount of good work being done at the moment at Wandsworth in investigating the mental and physical condition of the young people in particular who are sent to gaol.
As the hon. and gallant Gentleman knows, I sat on a Departmental Committee—and I might say in passing that it was the most interesting organisation that I ever touched—inquiring into the treatment of young offenders, and I was privileged to visit Belgium to inquire into the system they have adopted there. I am dealing now with young people sent to prison under 21 years of age. There is an idea abroad that after 21, if a person has offended against the law several times, there is not as much hope of reformation as in the case of a younger person, but I will leave that point to those who understand the question better than I do. I think we ought to try in this country something of the kind that I saw in Belgium. This is what transpires with a young person here. He commits an offence against the law for a first time, or it may be against a by-law, and he is put on probation once, twice, and
sometimes up to six times. That is all to the good; but when he commits another offence, and probation is deemed to have failed, he is sent to prison. The magistrates here have the right to determine the destination of a convicted person; but in Belgium that is not so. All that the magistrates have to do there is to send every convicted young person to a national observation centre.
I must pay a tribute to the Belgian people and their method of treating their young folk. In fact, I am satisfied myself, that there is nothing more hopeful in the whole of Europe than what is now transpiring in a, place called Moll, it Belgium. Let us see what they do. When a young person reaches that institution, he is put under observation; he is not treated as a criminal, he has a great amount of freedom—very much more than he would have in Borstal or a reformatory school here—and he is observed for three or four months, or it may be six months. The medical observers there, the psychologists and the pathologists, when they have determined what should be done with the young person, decide his destination. What happens here? I do not think I am wrong in saying that there Eire some young people in prisons in this country who are not able mentally to understand why they are there at all. There are not many such, I agree, and I am not blaming the authorities for it. What I am saying is, that the system that we have in this country of dealing with young offenders against the law does not provide for a sufficient discrimination between the mentally deficient, the lunatic, and the person who is sane. I know it is difficult sometimes to secure the certification of a lunatic; but the borderline cases are immensely more difficult to deal with under our present system of imprisonment.
I say, therefore, that one of the greatest steps that could be taken by the Home Office is to carry out a recommendation which was made by the Departmental Committee to which I have referred, and establish observation centres, so that in future no young person, at any rate, will be sent to prison unless he is what is called in medical language compos mentis. A person sent to prison ought to be mentally capable of understanding the offence that he has committed; and
anybody who is not capable of understanding his offence should not be in prison at all, at any time. I want to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman whether the recommendation to which I have referred cannot be put into operation without legislation. I know that it is not possible for us to-night to deal with legislation; but there are remand homes now in existence, to which people are sent on bail or remand. I do not know whether these remand homes can be turned into observation centres; but the recommendation made was, that there should be three of these institutions established, so that the analysts, the men who understand mental science in particular, should be on the spot to observe these young people and determine their destination in the way that I have suggested.
I turn to another subject, and it is in relation to Borstal. There is no doubt in my mind, from the little information that I have, that the Borstal system is really a great success in dealing with cases that it is designed to treat; and I am not without hope that in the near future we shall not see any young persons under 21 years of age in prison at all; that they shall all be sent either to an observation centre or to a Borstal institution, if they have to be sent to confinement at all. The one thing that has annoyed me in connection with the Home Secretary's work was his appeal to charity to establish a Borstal institution. Why on earth the right hon. Gentleman made an appeal to charity for that work passes my comprehension. Hon. Members will be familiar, I suppose, with the fact that we have been closing reformatory and industrial schools in this country by the dozen during the last five or six years. Surely, the saving that has been secured by closing those schools ought to be used to establish new Borstal institutions. I do not want to use harsh words when the Home Secretary is not here. I prefer attacking the right hon. Gentleman when he is present—

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Where is he?

Mr. DAVIES: We shall get to know, probably, before we conclude this Debate. I would like to know from the hon. and gallant Gentleman what response has been made to that appeal. I think he wanted £100,000. It would be
just as ridiculous for the President of the Board of Education to make an appeal to charity to establish an elementary school. In fact, I go as far as to say that the establishment of a Borstal institution, in the present circumstances, is as necessary as establishing any educational institution in the land. The right hon. Gentleman has descended, in my view, to a very mean stage indeed by making an appeal to charity for the establishment of a Borstal institution.
7.0 p.m.
Notices have appeared in the Press occasionally that our prisons become too easy for the prisoners. Men in the dock are sometimes heard to say: "I prefer prison to the workhouse." I do not want the Prison Commissioners or the Home Office to be alarmed by those reports. If a man is imprisoned for 10 or 15 years, I doubt if at the end of such a term he has the capacity to understand liberty at all. I read a very good story the other day, if I might inflict it on the Committee, concerned with a prison in China. The walls were composed of woodwork and barbed wire. A cyclone blew the prison walls away, and the 500 men, imprisoned only by wood and barbed wire, were so accustomed to being prisoners that they rebuilt the prison walls forthwith, taking care that they were all inside. Our people, of course, would not do that; but there are a few individuals, obviously, who will say they prefer prison to liberty. I doubt, however, whether they are really telling the truth.
I have been dealing in the last few moments with lads and young women, and it is on that point I wish to dwell a moment or two longer. It is rather an appalling fact that in a country like ours, where we are making progress in some directions, where the death rate is going down, and there is an extension of the average life of the individual, where education is improving, except when the present Government are in power—we were improving before 1925, at any rate—where the hours of labour were being reduced, and we are told by the Prime Minister that the standard of the life of the people was going up, too, and where houses are being built to accommodate the overcrowded; yet, in relation to the treatment of young persons committed for offences we have not made
any progress in comparison with that made in other spheres of life. According to the last figures in my possession, during one year 2,066 lads and 199 young women were sent to prison in this country; and the receptions in the Borstal institutions for that year were 535 lads and 105 young women. What I want to say is, that the 2,066 lads and the 199 young women should not have seen the inside of prison walls at all. They ought to be sent to a Borstal or kindred institution for proper treatment, and it is the duty of the Home Office to proceed as soon as possible with the building of proper institutions to accommodate such persons. I do not think it requires legislation to do that. All it requires is money. While the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not on duty, the Home Secretary will perhaps get a little money from the petrol or the lighter tax for his purpose. In any case, we must know how much money has come in i[...] response to the appeal that he has made.
It is not commonly known that there are in some parts of this country police cells for which the Home Office is responsible. What happens is this: A man is convicted of an offence, and, instead of being sent to prison for a week or fortnight, as the case may be, he is sent to the police cell in the locality. There are police cells in one town but not in another, and I have a fear that there are persons convicted and sent to the police cell because such are available, and that they would not be convicted at all and sent anywhere for imprisonment if there were no such cells available. The administration of justice in that connection depends on the accommodation and not on the offence of the person brought before the Magistrates. I think we ought to know what the position is at the moment. Does the Home Office encourage these police cells, and, if it does encourage them, does it inspect them to see that the accommodation is adequate and proper both for men and women? I have my doubts sometimes as to whether a roan or woman should be sent to the police cells at all. Is there any room for recreation? That there is no room for instruction I am sure.
To come to another matter, I should like to know from the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary how many cases of sleepy sickness there are at tee moment in our gaols. I do not know if there are any, but there may still be some. One of the biggest tragedies in our country is that there is no appropriate institution to which to send cases of that kind; and I repeat it is not proper for the State to send any person to an institution for penal purposes unless that person is in the mental position to know what he is doing when he commits the offence. It is assumed sometimes that it meets the claims of justice merely if you satisfy the conscience of the magisterial bench. Sometimes the sentence is reckoned on a scale such as 5s. or a week, 10s. or a fortnight, £1 or a month. I hope that that idea will disappear, too. When a conviction is registered, not only should the bench be satisfied that the sentence is a just one, but the offender himself should be satisfied that he is getting justice from the State. After all, the offender knows in his heart of hearts whether the sentence is just or not.

The CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is irrelevant in dealing with sentences.

Mr. DAVIES: I was only diverting for a moment. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite will have seen the Report of the Departmental Committee on young offenders. What I want to know is whether any or all of these recommendations cannot be put into operation without legislation. I have the impression that some of them are capable of being translated into action administratively without legislation at all. I am not entitled to deal with guardianship or fines; but, in relation to detention and imprisonment, there are several recommendations in that document which, I think, it would be well if, before passing this Vote, we knew whether they could be put into operation. I close with an appeal to the Home Office and the Prison Commissioners, who have done a great deal of good work by trying to reclaim these individuals—one of the most difficult tasks of all. I appeal to them that they will not relax their effort in connection with instruction and education, because, after all, I am of opinion that the worst criminal in the land can be
appealed to in some way or other, so that when he comes out of prison he shall fit himself to be a decent citizen once again.

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: I am afraid I cannot claim the intimate knowledge of the subject displayed by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies). Very diffidently, I would detain the Committee for a few moments while I put in a very earnest plea to which, I hope, the Home Office will listen, for a more humane, more intelligent, more reformative method of treating young offenders. Reformative methods, as my hon. Friend who has just spoken has pointed out, are useless unless we make some more earnest effort than at present to find out the reasons, physical or mental, which impelled the young offender to commit crime. It is now established among all who take an intelligent interest in the subject that examination must precede any rational treatment. The matter was dealt with by Miss S. Margery Fry, who is now the honorary secretary of the Howard League for Penal Reform. I would like to quote from a speech which she made a few years ago, which, I think, really sums up admirably the whole situation as it is at present. She said:
I have been impressed with the need of some sort of investigation of our young delinquents by the short experience which I have yet had in sitting in the children's Courts in this country. One is amazed at the admirable machinery for finding out whether a child is or is not guilty of a particular act. There is something magnificent about the impartial hording of the balance of the law with a large policeman in one scale and a small scrap of a citizen in the other, seeing the balance held by the magistrate and occasionally seeing the small scrap of a citizen able to weigh down the large bulk of two or three policemen and prove his innocence. But when we come to the question of what is to be done with the scrap of a citizen, no such magnificent instrument is at hand. In fact, one finds only a very rough and ready instrument—a combination of a great deal of good will, with a great deal of want of organisation for discovering what had better be done with the child and a great deal of want of organisation for providing exactly the treatment suited to a particular class of children.
As the hon. Gentleman has just reminded us, the Belgians are much in front of us in this respect. They came to the conclusion long ago that, if you send people to institutions without
proper classification, you run the risk of doing them a great deal more harm than good, because the treatment which is given for one person may be the very worse kind of treatment for another. What is wanted in England, as the Committee on the Treatment of Youthful Offenders pointed out, is at least three such establishments as the one in Belgium. We want one in London, one in the Midlands, and one in the North. In days gone by, magistrates merely committed to prison, but everybody realises now that the magistrates are taking a much more intelligent, conscientious and humane view of their duties. They are anxious to do their best in a reformative way with the offenders who come before them, but they are gravely handicapped by there being no alternative but to commit to prison youthful defendants who are on remand. The Committee on Youthful Offenders came forward with a very strong recommendation to the effect that:
We are satisfied that a much better system of examination is required for young offenders under 21 years.
I hope that the Home Secretary, when he reads this Debate, will be impressed with the necessity of moving forward with the times. After all, the Home Secretary will incur a serious responsibility if he allows a very defective and unintelligent and inhumane system to continue. There is no doubt that the system of sending to prison young people on remand is unintelligent and inhumane. Ample allusion has been made in past reports of the Prison Commissioners to the need for reform. Perhaps the House will allow me to read one such allusion:
It is deplorable that after all the efforts made lately to diminish the scandal of imprisoning untried, and thus presumably innocent people, there were 2,000 more such prisoners last year than the year before. We again think there is reason to regret that so many persons should receive the stigma of committal to prison. There is a more definite evil, too, namely, that the person remanded, despite all the care of the prison authorities, sometimes becomes known by sight to old offenders, who claim acquaintance"—

The CHAIRMAN: Is not this the responsibility of the magistrates rather than that of the Prison Commissioners?

Lord H. CAVENDISH-BENTINCK: It is really a question of the administra-
tion of the law, but my point is that the magistrates are gravely handicapped by the inadequacy of the facilities provided for the proper treatment of youthful offenders. Confining myself to prison administration, I would draw the Committee's attention to the passage in the Report of the Prison Commissioners for last year. They draw attention to the practice of some justices of sending to prison people about whose mental condition they are uncertain, and then calling on the prison authorities for a report on their mental conditions, and asking the prison authorities to have regard to their mental condition, instead of having a proper mental examination first, and then treating the offender in a proper way. They draw attention to the case of a woman who was sentenced to prison for 14 days for sleeping out in order that a report on her mental condition should be obtained. Surely, it would have been more intelligent to get the report first, and then to have treated her afterwards. It was found that this woman was mentally defective. What was the good of Sending to prison a woman who was mentally defective? Another woman was sent to prison for 21 days' hard labour for stealing a pair of shoes, and the prison authorities were asked to keep an eye upon her mental condition. How could anybody keep an eye on her mental condition, when she was sent to 21 days' hard labour? It is absurd, and I put in an urgent plea that the Home Secretary will signalise his office by doing something which will do him great credit and remove what is a scandal and an injustice, and let us see during his term of office that there is in this country a system of treating young criminals in a more humane and intelligent way.

Mr. E. BROWN: I want to ask a question about the old lag. Those who have watched Question Time during the last six or seven months will be disturbed by the conditions in convict prisons, especially the convict prison at Parkhurst. Can the Under-Secretary say anything about the present condition of that prison, and whether the Department is satisfied with recent developments? I find in the report of the Administrative Inspectors of Prisons that, whereas they visited some prisons twice, and went to
Dartmoor once, the convict prison in which the largest number of convicts are confined, namely, Parkhurst, does not appear to have been visited at all, unless in this sentence we have an explanation. After setting out the list of prisons visited, which does not include Parkhurst, they say:
In addition to inspections we have, as occasion arose, visited different establishments in connection with matters of administrative detail.
Whether that sentence covers more than one visit to Parkhurst, in view of recent events, I do not know, but it seems strange that the name of Parkhurst is absent from the inspectors' report. It is important, because of the 10,860 persons sent to prison in 1926, 1,399 are in convict establishments, and are more or less old lags. When we refer to the report, we find on analysis that the largest number of these old lags are not in Dartmoor, the largest prison, but in Parkhurst, and the Committee should give some attention to the difference between the figures of Dartmoor and the figures of Parkhurst. In Parkhurst, there are 767 cells. The average daily number of prisoners or inmates in the year was 623. The largest number at any given time was 662, and the lowest was 592. In Dartmoor, while there are 1,226 cells, the daily average was only 481. The largest number was 509 and the lowest number 455. I quote these figures in order to call attention to another table of figures. In Appendix 4 of the report. Table A, we are given the number of offences in the prison for which restraint was necessary. At Dartmoor, the number of applications of the loose canvas restraint jacket to males was two, and of the body belt, 12. The number of times the special cells were used for the temporary confinement of refractory or violent persons was 10 at Dartmoor, and the number of individuals restrained was seven. We have the very startling figure at Parkhurst of 20 under restraint with the loose canvas jacket, 28 with the body belt, and 18 handcuffed. In Dartmoor there were none handcuffed. The number of times the special cells were used for the temporary confinement of refractory or violent persons in Parkhurst was no less than 81, as compared with 10 at Dartmoor, while the number of individuals restrained at Parkhurst was 23 as compared with seven at Dartmoor.
I do not know what is the explanation. It seems a remarkable disproportion between the two prisons. I venture to ask whether there is anything in the suggestion, made in many quarters, that there has been a new policy of severity enforced at Parkhurst since the appointment of a new Governor about July, 1926. Have new sound-proof punishment cells been built, and is it a fact that educational lectures and classes have been cut down, until practically the only regular class is the band? I understand that the admission to lectures is allowed only to a very few convicts, and that at one lecture it is reported that only three men were present. It is also reported that the organiser of the class, the Director of Education in the Isle of Wight, has resigned. If this be so, it seems to call for some inquiry by the Home Office, and some attention by this Committee to the conduct of this prison under the new Governor. In an answer given on 27th February in this House to a question as to the spirit of unrest in the prison, and the disturbance which arose from that spirit of unrest, it was stated that during the first 18 months of the new regime 186 offences for violence occurred, as compared with the 134 in the preceding 18 months. The apparent bad effect on the convicts in the prison has evidently reacted on the officers, because in the "Prison Officers' Magazine" for May last there appeared this sentence:
We have to admit that the Parkhurst staff are not as happy as they were under the former Governor.
I draw the attention of the Committee to these facts, and I hope that in his reply the Under-Secretary will be able to give us some reassurance as to the explanation of these facts and figures.

Captain CAZALET: I rise to deal with the grant which the Government now give to the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, but before doing so I would like to endorse what the hon. Gentleman who opened this Debate and the Noble Lord the Member for South Nottingham (Lord H. Cavendish-Bentinck) said regarding juvenile offenders. Anyone who has visited Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where the majority are first offenders, must have come to the conclusion that most of the young offenders there are not real criminals in any sense but are suffering
from some form of disease, either mental or physical, and if possible they ought to be treated in a different manner from the ordinary so-called criminal. I understand that the Secretary of State is well aware of this, but it is because he has been unable to extract money from the Exchequer that we have not some more homes, or at least one more home, built for this particular class of juvenile criminals. As he has been successful in various battles during the past two or three years, I hope he will in the end succeed in getting from the Chancellor of the Exchequer the sum needed. Coming to the question of discharged prisoners, I think everybody is aware of the extraordinary difficulties which beset the discharged prisoner, man or woman, in finding some occupation. Every difficulty that can be placed in a discharged prisoner's way is placed in his way. Those puritanical characteristics which have served our nation so well in the past militate against our receiving an ex-convict into our midst.
The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society and its incorporated branches is doing to-day, as it has done in the past, wonderful work, and the Home Secretary has often paid tribute to it. But even that Society, with all the energy and enthusiasm which it applies to the task, does not, and cannot, really meet the needs of the situation. The report deal-with the year 1925–26 shows that 40,000 men were discharged from prison, of whom about 50 per cent. were assisted by the Central Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society, but only some 7,000, about 14 per cent. or 15 per cent. found jobs. In the same year 8,000 women were discharged, of whom 60 per cent. were assisted, and about 22 per cent. were found occupations. It will be generally admitted, I think, that there is no better way of checking crime and reducing the number of criminals than by getting prisoners jobs immediately they come out of prison. Not only money is required, but personal sympathy and encouragement. The personal sympathy and encouragement are given voluntarily by hundreds of thousands of individuals throughout the country, and what we want from the Government is a little more money. The Home Secretary has said that the Central Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society spends some 10s. per individual, but admits himself that
to do the job properly an expenditure of about £5 is required. The Government grant appears to be 1s. for every convicted prisoner discharged, provided that this grant is met by a voluntary annual subscription of not less than half that grant, and occasionally they give an extra grant of some £750 to £1,000. Voluntary subscriptions last year raised more than £13,000, and the Government grant does not compare very favourably with what is done voluntarily.
From another page in the Report, I see that the value of the work done by the prisoners themselves was reckoned to amount to no less than £292,000 in 1926–27. Would it not be possible for a certain proportion of this money to be allocated specifically to the individual prisoners? I am not suggesting that it should be given to them when they come out of prison. The money should be given to some trustee who is guaranteed by the authorities and is known to the governor of the prison and who will use that accumulated reserve, however small it may be, to assist the prisoner in that very critical period after he comes out of prison and before he finds work. California, in 1923, passed legislation to this effect, and I believe the result has been amazingly satisfactory in finding ex-prisoners jobs with the greatest celerity. I wish that while in prison prisoners could be taught some occupation or industry which would be of use to them and to which they could turn immediately they come out of prison. I know from personal experience that there are men who own shops, both wholesalers and retailers, who are prepared to accept the products made by prisoners both while they are in prison and immediately they come out, but the point they always make is that prisoners are not taught to make articles of standard size, and to be of any use to a big retailer articles must be uniform and standard. I hope the Home Office will draw the attention of the various governors of prisons to this matter.
Another point to which I wish to refer is religious freedom in prison. There is not to-day real religious freedom in the prisons of this country. By an Act passed in 1898 or 1899, when men or women go into prison they have to state categorically to which religion they belong.

Mr. E. BROWN: So they do in the Army.

Captain CAZALET: That is perfectly correct. Once they have decided, they cannot possibly change, except by a tortuous and difficult process. I suggest that large numbers of prisoners do not really know to which religion they belong, and I feel that any clergyman belonging to an accepted religion should be allowed to visit any prisoner whom he wishes to visit, and that any prisoner should be allowed to have the services of and visits from any accredited member of any recognised religion. Once a prisoner has been classified under a particular religion, he may not be visited by a clergyman of any other denomination, he is not allowed to attend the services or the lectures organised by any other denomination, and he is not even allowed to read those books which have been approved of and specified by the clergy of a different sect. If John Wesley, Spurgeon, or General Booth himself were to apply to give an address in a prison in this country to-day, only the particular members of their donominations would be allowed to attend. I think the futility of the situation will be realised from this short report:
The Salvation Army has been allowed for some time past to go into prisons and to give band concerts. These were gradually growing into concerts in which short addresses were given to the men and a few prayers offered at the conclusion. The men took pleasure in attending those meetings, and in many cases expressed their desire to become members of the Salvation Army. Objection was taken to this. Protests were sent to the Commissioners that these services were not being conducted according to prison rules, and an order has been issued that in future such services should not take place, and that if the Salvation Army went in they should only be allowed to give musical performances and a non-religious address.
We remember that in the Army there were certain men who when they realised that if they belonged to certain religions they got off church parade—there were very few of them—were apt to change their religion, and I recognise that that difficulty presents itself in the case of prisoners also, but I cannot think that any clergyman or accredited minister of an accepted religion, who is approved by the governor, should be denied access to any prisoner whom he may desire to see. If religion can bring any comfort or help to
a prisoner, surely we are not so narrow-minded as to object to its coming either from a Roman Catholic, a Protestant, or a Methodist, and I hope the Home Secretary will use his influence to secure latitude in this respect, as at the present moment we are bound by the actual letter of the law.

Mr. L'ESTRANGE MALONE: I wish to take the Committee hack to some of the remarks made by earlier speakers in connection with juvenile offenders and the administration of Borstal, because I feel there is a certain laxity in the regulations and a certain tightening up of the general conditions. As an example of what I have in mind, I want to draw attention to a sentence which seems to me to constitute a very grave indictment of our whole system of dealing with young offenders. Only on Friday last, 18th May, at the Central Criminal Court in London, Robert Leonard Hobbs, a boy only 16 years of age, from the training ship "Arethusa," was sentenced to four years' penal servitude for wounding another boy. I know it will be quite out of order for me to discuss that sentence, and I am not doing so. It was a very serious offence, something akin to murder, and, undoubtedly, from one point of view it was a sentence which was justified. What I am raising is the question of its being possible for a boy of that sort to come before the Court in that way and to get that sentence. When the question came up, the medical officer at Maidstone, where the boy had been sent on remand, reported that:
The prisoner, who was a boy of 16, had the mentality of a boy of 13, and needed supervision for several years.
The medical officer went on to say:
If he were sent to penal servitude he would he able to go to a department of the prison where he would get special care and be able to continue his education be taught a trade, and be allowed visitors.
I should have thought that it was known that at a prison like Maidstone a prisoner is unable to learn a trade which would be suitable for his future career. One can see from the Report of the Commissioners that the sort of work they are employed on includes basket-making, brush-making, mat-making, and son on. I feel that it is really monstrous that a boy of this tender age, who has committed an act of this sort—admittedly a very grave act
which was described by the Judge as "an act akin to attempted murder"—should be sent to penal servitude for four years, from which he will emerge at the age of 20 branded as a convict with a stigma that will remain with him throughout the rest of his life. I do not think this boy should have been dealt with in that way. Have we not at Wandsworth Prison a special staff of trained psychologists or medical people who are supposed to examine all cases of this sort, and is it not easy for the prisoners reported as medical cases to be sent to Wandsworth Prison for supervision before they are sent to penal servitude? Why was this boy, whom the medical officer at Maidstone reported as a medical case, not sent to Wandsworth Prison for examination before being sent to the Central Criminal Court, and why was he not sent to one of our Borstal institutions? We have three Borstal institutions, one at Borstal, one at Feltham, and one at Portland, with various degrees of hardness of treatment, and surely one of those institutions might have been found suitable for a boy of this age after committing this offence. I would like to ask why that procedure was not adopted, and why it is possible for a boy of such tender age to be sent to penal servitude. Why was not this boy put through the customary medical examination at Wandsworth Prison, and when he came up for sentence why was he sent to a convict prison instead of being sent, as a first offender, to a Borstal institution? Treatment of this kind takes one back 50 years in the administration of justice in this country.
I would like to draw attention to the presentation of the Report of the Prison Commissioners. There are two Reports, one presented by the Prison Commissioners for Scotland—which I know it would not be in order for me to discuss on this Vote—and the Report of the Commissioners of Prisons in this country for the year 1927. The Scottish Report is twice the size of the English Report. That does not mean that the Scottish people are more addicted to crime than we are, but I find that the Scottish Report is very much more complete and compiled much better than the English Report. I suggest to the Home Secretary that on future occasions he should follow the example of the Scottish Report and draw up the British Report on similar
lines. One particular feature I wish to emphasise in the Scottish Report is the Appendix at the end giving examples as to the causes of crime. In my opinion that is one of the most valuable sections in the whole Report. When one examines and reads the stories relating to people sent to prison, one must draw certain deductions. I should be very glad to have a reply to the two points which I have raised.

Mr. WITHERS: I want to emphasise what has been said by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies), who moved a reduction of this Vote, and more especially what he said about the Report of the Departmental Committee for the Treatment of Young Offenders. I think every page of that Report bristles with good suggestions. I would like to emphasise what has been suggested with regard to the necessity of having more observation centres. Prison administration in such cases may be compared with people who are ill, and you have to give them a dose of some sort of medicine. Such cases may be simple, but mental cases are more difficult, and it is obviously very much more difficult still in the case of young offenders. I most earnestly emphasise what has been said on these points. I have always found the Home Secretary most considerate in cases of this sort, and I hope he will be considerate on this occasion.

Mr. RITSON: I want to speak on this subject from experience I have had in dealing with prisoners. In dealing with juvenile offenders, I hope that the system which has been adopted by the late Chief Constable of Sunderland, who is now at Newcastle, will be carefully considered by the Home Secretary in order to see if it can be carried out in other districts. Under the system to which I allude, the young offenders are taken before the police, and they are not taken before the Children's Court at all. The parents are asked to go with their children, and they are given all the information as to the conduct of the children who are charged. I much prefer children to be brought before a kindly inspector instead of being taken before the magistrate. When you take a child into Court, there is always a policeman at one end of the Court and a magistrate at the other end, and I think it is better to allow the police to deal
with them in the kindly way that I have suggested.
I want to say a word or two about the overcrowding of cells. I have had a long experience of that kind of thing, particularly on a Saturday night, when frequently the cells at a police station are crowded by persons of all types. I want to put in a plea for a man who is awaiting trial for some small offence and who is sometimes placed in a cell with a man who is singing drunk all night. I have seen as many as eight persons in one cell, three or four of them singing drunk, and the others asking to be put in a cell where they can get some sleep. I think that sort of thing ought to be remedied. It is not fair to crowd into a cell a boy of 16 or 17 with a man who is charged with having exposed himself in some filthy way or another. There ought to be a difference made in such cases and the cells ought to be more separated. Children ought to be protected from such associations as. I have mentioned.
Another question to which I wish to refer is the taking of these men to prison. I feel that the time has come when large boroughs ought not to take their prisoners to railway stations where crowds of men and women are looking on, and in the case I am referring to when they get to Durham they are transferred at the station to the Black Maria. I know these prisoners feel their position very keenly. I think, in transferring prisoners from the police stations to the prisons, there should be a complete conveyance right to the prison. I have myself seen eight men and a woman in the same compartment, and that is neither just to the woman nor fair to the men. Sometimes you have an old hardened prisoner sitting alongside a boy prisoner who is going to prison for the first time, and the hardened prisoner frequently frightens the boy by drawing miserable pictures of what they are going to suffer in prison. I know many of these reforms are refused on account of the expense that would be entailed. With regard to religious teaching, I think every sect should have the right to go into the prison to see the prisoners belonging to their creed and all the Free Churches ought to be allowed an opportunity of teaching Christianity to the prisoners.
8.0 p.m.
There is another matter that I should like to mention to the hon. and gallant
Gentleman. One of my constituents made a complaint to me that, when he had to go to prison, having been convicted at a place which I need not mention, he did not get his food, because of certain regulations to the effect that, after a prisoner has been convicted, no food may be given to him until he arrives at his destination at the other end. I mentioned this matter to Major-General Atcherley, who said that he would look into it, and that case has been dealt with, but it may apply to other places. A prisoner may have been tried at eleven in the morning somewhere in the county of Durham, and, although he had had breakfast at eight, he would get nothing more until he reached Durham at five. I have sufficient confidence in the humanity of the Home Secretary to feel sure that it is only necessary to draw his attention to these anomalies under which prisoners suffer. Another matter that I should like to mention is that of the dirty prisoner. I was once taking an American, who was only in for seven days for being drunk, and I had seven others linked together on the chain, among whom were some old men who were simply overrun with lice; and this man and I had to stand in the middle of the compartment to avoid the vermin running on to us. I do not think it is fair that a prisoner who has only committed some simple offence should be chained up with such people. I have put forward these few practical matters of which I know myself in connection with that work, because, small though they may be, they are important, and just as worthy of consideration as larger questions.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I am very glad that this Vote has been put down for discussion. We are concerned here on so many occasions with the rights and privileges of people who are free, and we are thinking almost entirely of their life and activities, so that it is well that just once we should be concerned with those unfortunate people who have missed their way. Some of those who have missed their way are old, hardened offenders, and there is perhaps very little hope of any complete change in their lives. Indeed, their case seems to me to be about the most pathetic of any with which we are
brought into contact. Among those, however, who have missed their way, are large numbers in whose case there is at any rate some possibility of a different result, and it seems to me that society is doubly bound to leave no possible stone unturned to find the way again for people of that kind.
In the first place, society owes it to these individuals. It has no right to leave them in a condition in which they are constantly going into and out of prison, and in which the liberties of life are denied to them, at least intermittently. Over and above that, society owes to itself the duty to see to it that there are none, or at any rate that there are as few as possible, who are outside the pale. It owes that duty to itself because of the trouble and expense and labour involved in attempting to coerce those who disagree; but, far more than that, it owes it to itself because society is one unit, one whole, just as much as is the body one organism, and, precisely as it is not possible to have a healthy body when one member of it is diseased, so it is impossible for society to be really healthy, strong or free when any part of it, however small, is afflicted with the disease which results in imprisonment.
I am very glad to think that in recent years there has been a considerable improvement in the whole attitude of society towards prisons and prisoners. Only a very few years ago the condition of prisons was such as to be, not merely disgraceful and scandalous, but ridiculous from the point of view of any sound or sane object of their existence. No one knows that better than those who, like myself, have at one time in their lives enjoyed the privilege, if it may be so called, of the hospitality of His Majesty inside prison walls. Those of my friends who have shared that experience with me know quite well that the very last thing that a prison was in those days was the sort of place which would in the least degree tend to prevent men or women from going back again within its walls; in fact, the effect of prison life was almost exactly the reverse. I am very glad to think that, partly owing to the presence within our prisons of many men and women different from the ordinary prison popula-
tion, changed ideas with regard to prisons have prevailed in recent years, and there has undoubtedly been a very considerable amelioration in the attitude of the community towards prison and the prison population.
The moment you begin to try to get to the bottom of what is wrong with prisoners, you are confronted with pathological and psychological problems, and you are forced to classify the prison population into at least three sub-divisions. First of all, you have the feeble-minded, who, as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) rightly pointed out, are not conscious of what they are doing at all, and very often it never occurs to them to think, or they are quite incapable, of covering up the tracks of their misdemeanour. One could quote many illustrations to prove that point, and it is quite clear that, so far as the feeble-minded are concerned, our whole mechanism of prison punishment and incarceration is quite ridiculous and absurd. At the other end of the scale there is a very small number of super-intellectual people, whose peculiar idiosyncrasy is an extreme individualism. Members on the other side ought to have considerable sympathy with prisoners of that type, because they are simply carrying principles which some hon. Members opposite carry to considerable extremes to still further extremes, till they run counter to the laws of the land.
These people form a comparatively small part of the prison population, and they obviously merit an entirely different kind of treatment from the feeble-minded or from the third class, which forms, or has formed in times gone by, the bulk of the prison population. The bulk of the prison population are ordinary men and women, not very different from those who sit on the benches in all quarters of this House. There are very few Members here, probably, who have not at some time of their lives committed some little delinquency which, under less happy circumstances, might have brought them into considerable trouble, and who, by good luck or, to use a phrase the author of which I do not remember at the moment, by the grace of God, have kept outside prison walls. We have to remember that
this great bulk of the prison population is made up of human beings with like passions, like emotions, and like struggles with the rest of mankind outside, and, therefore, in dealing with them, we need to go beyond the mere classification to which I have referred, into a real diagnosis of character, in order to understand the circumstances, the motives and the instincts which have brought these people into conflict with the law.
It is there, I think, that the kind of mental atmosphere which women possess, owing to the fact that they have the care of children, and that they have to deal with one of their family in a different way from another, and with a third in a different way again, enables them to see more clearly than the average man what ought to be done in these matters connected with prisons; and I think it is at least worth noting that some improvement in the whole attitude towards prisoners has, at any rate, synchronised with the coining into political power of women as well as men. It is because I think it is very important that the individual characters and capacities of the ordinary delinquent should be most carefully studied that I so heartily support the appeal of my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton that the Home Secretary should take some administrative action in order in some way or other to introduce into this country the Moll system, which has proved such a great success in Belgium, because of its possibilities in the direction of observing the conduct of the youthful offender, so that, either before he or she is convicted, or even, as I understand, in some cases, after conviction, the punishment may be made suitable to the offender. We all remember the famous line in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Mikado" about making the punishment fit the crime, but I think the modern version of that doctrine is not that the punishment should invariably fit the crime, but that the treatment, whatever it may be, should be fitted to the particular mentality of the offender. That is a new doctrine, and a very much more desirable one than the old rigid rule that a certain crime merited a certain definite punishment.
Another point to which my hon. Friend alluded was capital punishment. I am aware, of course, that I should not be allowed to discuss the main question to-day, but I support his request that
we might be furnished with statistics of what is being done in other countries, and how, if at all, the numbers of criminals are affected where capital punishment does not exist. It has been said, I believe with a good deal of truth, that when an execution takes place in a prison it has a very demoralising effect upon the prisoners, and I should like to ask what steps the Minister is taking to minimise this injurious effect. In particular, I understand executions take place at Wandsworth, a prison to which juvenile offenders are sent instead of going to Borstal. There are many objections to sending Borstal boys to Wandsworth, and in any case it seems to me the effect upon the young mind of having executions taking place in the prison is one that ought to be very carefully considered, and any possible step to guard against it should be taken.
I very heartily support what has been said with regard to the Home Secretary's failure to spend money to get a new Borstal. The Prison Commissioners in their report refer to the inadequacy of the present Borstal system, and they say the numbers at Feltham, Borstal, and Portland are so large that it is very difficult for the Governor and the housemasters to maintain the personal touch with each lad which is so essential to Borstal training. It is clear that the present Borstal accommodation is inadequate, and it would be very much better if money were found to add to it. I agree with what has been said in criticising very severely the attempt of the Home Secretary to throw upon the charitable public the task of supplying what is quite obviously a State institution, which ought to be provided for out of State funds. Private charity has not been forthcoming, and, in view of that failure, I hope another year will not elapse before the Home Secretary sees to it that his duty is really done in this matter and that an additional Borstal Institution is provided.
May I say a word with regard to corporal punishment. One of the recommendations of the Departmental Committee on Young Offenders is its proposal that in certain cases, if they are boys, they should be whipped. I believe that to be a thoroughly retrograde action, and I cannot support it. The flogging of
adults is, in my opinion, a very grave and improper proceeding.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Captain FitzRoy): These sentences are surely not in the responsibility of the prison authorities.

Mr. PETHICK-LAWRENCE: I did not make myself fully clear. I am not referring to sentences of flogging imposed by the Judges, but to the flogging of prisoners for offences against prison discipline. Perhaps the hon. and gallant Gentleman will say the number of cases is insignificant, but the principle is a bad one, and it is worth noting that M. Mosse, the head of the French Prison Department, writing in a book published a year pr two ago, remarks that of course no corporal punishment is now used in the prisons in France. I believe that is also true of a good many of the States of the United States, and of one or two other countries. At any rate, it is true of France, and I do not think we ought to be behind our neighbours in this respect.
I cannot help thinking that not only we on this side of the Committee, but the Home Secretary also must feel rather disquieted at the fact that the number of debtors in prison, so far from diminishing, has in recent years rather tended to increase. We all realise that some coercive means must be taken to deal with those who either will not pay their rates or taxes when they can, or fail to maintain their wives and families when ordered by the Court, but the treatment of debtors in prisons seems to me to be very unsatisfactory. If there is anything a debtor in prison ought to be doing, it is working and earning a certain amount of money in order to discharge his debt. As a matter of fact, the tasks debtors perform seem to be very desultory and they do not really learn that habit of work which one would suppose to be one of the principal objects of dealing with them in prison.
May I raise one or two more points about individual questions. I hope the Under-Secretary will convey to the right hon. Gentleman the feeling that has been expressed in all parts of the Committee that what is going on at Parkhurst is very far from satisfactory. The time was when that prison was achieving good ends, but latterly there are signs that it it retrogressing, that there is a good deal of revolt and tumult, that the educa-
tional classes have been cut down, and that the warders are dissatisfied, all of which seems to point to there being something wrong, and, while the Home Secretary may be able to gloss it over, I cannot help thinking that there are very grave symptoms which he cannot afford altogether to disregard. When he deals with Parkhurst and Dartmoor, the two great convict establishments, I think we want a better explanation than we have had up to the present as to why their educational systems are not progressing as they ought to do. The Minister has often explained his sympathy with the development of education in prison, but I do not think the actual concrete results in Parkhurst and Dartmoor show that his principles are being put into practice.
The Home Secretary, in reply to me, has admitted the defects of Pentonville, but time goes on, and nothing is done. We ought at a very early date either wholly to reconstruct the prison or to abandon it in favour of other places. Here, again, the right hon. Gentleman seems to have allowed the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his views about expense to stand in the way of a very much needed reform. I feel that, particularly in the earlier part of his administration, the Home Secretary showed very considerable promise and fulfilment in the improvements he effected in prisons, but latterly he has been diverging from the right path, that so far as the convict prisons are concerned he has been insisting upon a greater stringency, which has not worked out for the good of the convicts or their improvement, or for the benefit of the community, and that in his refusal to spend money either in dismantling Pentonville or establishing a new Borstal Institution he has been quite unnecessarily subservient to the exigencies of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it is time this Committee stiffened his back to demand, in the interests of real reform, that money ought to be devoted to objects that are necessary in the interest of the community as a whole.

Mr. OLIVER: Personally, I was very delighted when this subject was put down for discussion. Listening to the Debate, it is evident that the points which have been raised are of great importance
to the unfortunate persons who find themselves the unwilling guests of His Majesty. One is rather struck by the very thin line which divides the people of this country—the convicted and the unconvicted—because when we see many of our fellow citizens sent to prison for, in many instances, comparatively minor offences we are apt to think that at some period in our lives we may have done worse things. My purpose is to draw the attention of the Under-Secretary to one or two particular points which, in my opinion, are very grave points. I want to direct his attention to a concrete case of an unfortunate youth who at the age of 19 attempted to commit suicide by placing himself before a London Midland and Scottish Express. The boy was brought before the Sessions, and he received six months' imprisonment. Despite the fact that we had medical evidence there to show that this boy was subnormal—

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN: That matter does not come within the administration of prisons.

Mr. OLIVER: I think I can show exactly how I want to connect the offence with prison administration. It is necessary to point out the offence before I can come to the prison. Medical evidence was given showing that the boy was subnormal, and, despite that fact, the magistrates had no alternative but to send him to prison. What kind of treatment did he receive in prison? I understand that he went into the Second Division. The boy was sent to prison for something which was purely mental and he required mental treatment and mental treatment alone, but, instead of receiving mental treatment, he was sent into the Second Division, and no treatment was given to him at all. Subsequently he came out, but he was not cured. No, there has been no attempt to give the treatment which he so badly requires, and subsequent events show that, instead of his incarceration being of any service whatever to him in a curative sense, he came out infinitely worse than he was when he went in. This is a point which, I think, is of vital importance to the Home Office. It is no use sending people to prison for offences which are purely attributable to mental derangement unless, when they are in prison, something can be done to help these unfor-
tunate victims. Unfortunately, when a sentence is given it is not only upon the unfortunate prisoner that the stigma rests. The stigma is on the family also. Therefore, it is important that every care should be exercised to treat an offence which is attributable to mental derangement distinct from one which is purely attributable to ordinary criminal causes.
There is one other point to which I should like to draw the attention of the Under-Secretary. I understand from the Prison Governors that much damage is done by young offenders associating with old offenders in prison. I understand that very little can be done under the existing arrangements to eliminate this. I remember that in Nottingham a few months ago, two men, apparently from dire straits and unemployment, broke into a shop, and, after they had helped themselves fairly liberally to all the food that was available, or as much as they could consume, they took down the telephone receiver and rang up the police. They asked the police to fetch them, as they had broken into a shop and they were ready to accompany them to the police station. The men received, I think, three months' imprisonment. Obviously, those men were not criminals in the accepted sense of the term, but they had to receive the same treatment as some of the old lags who have been in prison dozens of times. I understand there is no line of demarcation in respect of these men who are sent to prison for offences which probably are attributable to economic causes, probably of a temporary nature. There is no distinction, as far as the treatment is concerned, between this type of offender and the older type of offender. These are the two points I desire to submit to the Under-Secretary, and I hope he will be able to say that in cases of this description some effort will be made to see that a marked improvement takes place in the months and the years that are before us.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: In all the speeches that have been delivered upon this subject until now, I think it will be agreed that a particular point of view has been advanced by each of the speakers in regard to the aim and the purpose of prisons generally. I can say with confidence that every Member on this side of the House, anyhow, takes the view that the aim of prisons should
be not so much punitive or repressive as reclamatory and reformative. The objections that have been raised in this Debate to the present system come back ultimately to and range round that single point of view. Many Members have spoken from varying aspects of this matter to-night. We have had a student of social science, we have had an ex-policeman, and perhaps it is time that the gaolbirds had a word to say for themselves. I have spoken on all sorts of subjects in this House in my time, but perhaps I have never spoken with such evidence of inside information as I have on this matter.

Mr. E. BROWN: But it is not up-to-date.

Mr. JONES: It does not matter if it is not up-to-date, but we shall see how far it is in accordance with present conditions when the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite replies. I have seen our prison system for a fairly considerable time and have subjected it to personal examination. I would like to know, indeed I am extremely intrigued to find out, as to how far the present system has, in fact, undergone transformation in the course of the last few years. Perhaps I may be able to indicate from practical experience some of the objections that we have to the prison system as we now find it. Is there in contemplation in the minds of the Prison Commissioners a policy for refashioning the prison buildings? In many of the old prisons, a prisoner is no sooner inside the gates than he is immediately reminded that to those in charge of the establishment he is no longer a separate individual, but merely a number. He is given a number. He may be A.2 or A.20 or C.2 or C.30. The only difference between him and his neighbour is that his number is different. That gives an indication of the whole mentality of the prison system; a mentality which is completely wrong. You cannot treat dozens of men or women as though they were all alike, having no differences of personality, no differences of impulse, and could be treated according to one accepted pattern.
The first comment which I wish to make on the prisons as I saw them, with the exception, perhaps, of buildings like Wormwood Scrubs, is that the arrangement is built up on a sort of spy system.
An officer stands at the centre of an hexagonal space in the prison, and he is eternally looking down, watching everyone in the place. The building is designed so that everyone is under observation. You have the chief warden spying upon the lower officers and the lower officers spying upon other lower officers and those lower officers spying upon the prisoners, and, vice versa, the prisoners spying upon the officers, right away up to the top. It is a sort of exaggerated spy system, which creates a desire on the part of a person with any sort of spirit to defeat the system which he finds in operation in the place. Perhaps I might indicate something in my own experience which proves the point. I do not wish to mention any particular prison and I do not wish to say anything against the personnel, because they treated me with the utmost kindness. Let us say that in a certain gaol there is a garden party of prisoners arranged. Before they go out they are drawn up in a row, and every man stretches out his arms and is searched from head to foot, as if he were the most terrible thief imaginable. He goes into the garden and does his day's work, and when he comes back he is searched again. There is not the slightest doubt that that routine being gone through day after day tends to make any prisoner of spirit determined that he will beat it if he can. I did beat, it many times.
The question of clothing is very important. It is rather difficult to obtain a complete set of Regulations which govern the gaols. I do not know why the authorities should be so secretive. It would be much better if we could get easy access to the Regulations that govern the gaols. Under the old Regulations, the clothing which an individual wore and the bedclothes had to be washed so many times; say, once a year or twice a year or once every three months, as the case might be. I happen to know that when a man goes into prison he does not know who was the person who wore the suit which is handed to him. It is most unjust when an individual goes into prison that he has no guarantee that the clothing handed to him has been thoroughly disinfected, as it ought to be. Who knows from what sort of disease the prisoner who wore the suit previously may have suffered? Of
whatever offence a man may have been guilty he is entitled to be guaranteed against that kind of infection. It is time that we treated prisoners as though they were really human beings. I remember well what was done in regard to debtors. One person old enough to be my grandfather had to get ready to see one of the officers of the gaol. He had to stand with his face to the wall, as though he were a naughty boy, and when he wanted to enter the governor's room he had to put his cap on the floor near the doorstep. That kind of thing is altogether too ridiculous so far as the treatment of grown-up persons is concerned. It breeds a sense of s resentment, and it ought not to be tolerated in these enlightened days.
Another aspect of prison discipline is the question of food. I do not care to trouble the Committee with the details, but if I were to describe the dietary that was handed Gut to prisoners in my day, hon. Members would be shocked at the lack of inspiration in the whole thing. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday there was a certain dietary; on Thursday, you had Monday's dietary over again, on Friday you had Tuesday's dietary over again, and on Saturday you had Wednesday's dietary over again, with this remarkable relaxation for your special benefit that on Sunday you got an extra pint of tea or cocoa. To treat people in that stupid, unimaginative way is really hopeless and beyond recall. I should like to make an appeal on the question of the treatment of prisoners from the physical point of view. In most prisons that I have seen there is only a limited exercise yard. You go round and round, morning after morning, the same things to be seen, no chance of decent exercise, and strictly forbidden to say a word to your nearest neighbour. People do talk, in spite of the Regulations. That inculcates in men a desire to destroy and defeat the very rules intended to repress them.
On the question of health I should like to put in a word. I do not know what the present conditions are, but I should like to say what were the conditions that I saw, and I see from this year's report that probably the same conditions prevail to-day. I look at the industries which are being followed inside these institutions. They are basket-making, brush-making, mat-making, and so on. It frequently happens, at least it used to
happen and I think it is still part of prison punishment, that a man has to sit in his cell without speaking to anyone for a fortnight or a month. Into that cell is brought some mattress work, or some mat making or mail-bag making, which is full of dust, and the man who has to work in those conditions is constantly drawing this dust onto his lungs. It always seemed to me to be a monstrous thing that a man should be kept on this stuffy, vitiated atmosphere for 28 days without any opportunity at all of a chance of getting a little fresh air.
I have here a paper illustration of the sort of work which IJ myself did in gaol; I hope it is not done now. On the edges of the mail-bags there is a loop through which the rings pass; but imagine a man starting at six o'clock in the morning and cutting out a long strip of canvas of this shape, the shape of this piece of newspaper. To do that for four hours is an intolerable strain upon anyone, but to keep on doing it for hour after hour, and hour after hour, is enough to drive a man mad. I am not surprised that many men after doing a task like that must feel driven to desperation. Surely we can introduce some variety into our prison work. When we talk of giving men a chance to learn a trade in prison there is very little truth in it. What in actual fact happens is that they find out the previous occupation of a man before he comes into prison, and a man who is a bootmaker makes boots in the prison, and a man who is a bookbinder binds books. There is no variety, no teaching of a trade; and it is worth while, if we have to make mail-bags in prisons, that we should give the men a certain task for a certain number of hours, and then change it during the later part of the day. I am sure that the effect of this desperate monotony which men have to suffer inside our prisons has an after-effect upon their mental condition. Let me speak from my own experience, of what I know; and I think it also applies to many other people. The effect of my prison experience upon me was this, that for weeks on end it was almost an impossibility for me to cencentrate upon any kind of decent hard-thinking or reading. If that is true, and I think it is in the case of others, is it not possible that many of these men who go through gaol at the end of their period of service are not equipped adequately for facing
the new problems which the world presents to them?
The whole problem of the treatment of our prisoners wants complete re-examination. This enables me to lead on to another subject, and that is the sort of education which we provide for prisoners in our normal prisons. I am glad to know that a good deal is being undertaken in this matter. I know that concerts are being given and lectures encouraged, and I see that quite distinguished people are being invited to undertake the organisation of educational studies inside the prisons. So far so good, but it has often occurred to me, in connection with this educational work, that in the ease of people who have to serve a fairly long period, four months, five months, or six months, that instead of casual or haphazard educational work there should be, for the younger people at any rate, a definite course of study provided by some educational organisation which knows what to do in the case of adult people. Take an organisation like the Workers' Educational Association; why should they not be able to draft a syllabus covering a certain amount of definite educational ground for those prisoners who are there for a considerable length of time? The point made by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) is quite sound. We really ought to bring our whole educational system more into touch with the educational work which is being done in our prisons. It may be hard to indicate how it should be done, but there is no doubt that it should be undertaken.
It is no use our assuming that everybody in our prisons is entirely hopeless and beyond the pale of reclamation. As a matter of fact, a large number of men would never again return to prison were it not for the effect which solitary confinement without exercise and association has upon their mental equilibrium. What is called association in prisons is not association at all. How can you call it association when people are not allowed to sit as close together as the hon. and gallant Member in charge of this Debate and the Prime Minsiter are at this moment. Even in Church you have to sit a yard apart. You may not breathe a word to anyone; you are utterly and absolutely repressed, and the effect of three or six months silence upon a man
so impairs his mental capacity that when he goes out into the world the sense of relief is so overpowering that he loses control over himself and, as a consequence, does some mad thing in the hour of release; and back he goes in a comparatively short time. I hope the Under-Secretary of State will recognise that we are raising these points to-night, not because we feel that he and the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary are unsympathetic to prisoners, but because we think the time has come for reconsidering the problem of our prisons.
The hon. Member for Westhoughton has referred to a Belgian experiment. Let me refer to an American experiment. A distinguished American philanthropist, Mr. Mott Osborne, was asked to undertake the question of reorganising the prison regulations and discipline inside Sing Sing prison itself. The results achieved were simply astounding. The basis of the experiment was largely the introduction into the prison among the prison population of an element of self-government. I think it was Robert Louis Stevenson who said somewhere, "If you wish to make people trustworthy, trust them." What a prisoner so frequently suffers from is the feeling that his friends have left him, that there is no longer any hope for him in society, and that society will look askance at him. Give him a sense of confidence and of trust, show inside the prison that you really want to trust him and want him to feel that you are a friend, and I am sure that if you introduce that spirit into prison work there will be fewer recidivists amongst our prison population than has been the ease in the last few years. The Report of the Prison Commissioners shows that there is a gradual improvement in the prison population statistics, but there is still something to be done, and that thing can be done very largely by more humane treatment of the people inside the prison walls.

Mr. BARKER: I wish to support the protest made by the hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence) with reference to the inadequacy of the accommodation in the Borstal institutions. I think there is nothing that distresses a magistrate more than dealing
with juvenile crime. I live in an area where the young men who have comparatively recently left school have not been able to get employment. As a consequence many of them drift into crime. I was on the bench in Abertillery one day when a young boy was brought before the Court. He had been before the Court on several occasions, and the magistrates were distressed because they did not know what to do with him. He had a good character, except that since he had been unemployed he had drifted into bad company and had fallen into the hands of the police. Everyone who had employed the boy had given him an excellent character. Eventually the magistrates felt compelled to send the case to the Sessions, where he was sentenced to three years in a Borstal institution, but they were horrified to find later that the boy had been sent, not to a Borstal institution, but to Cardiff Gaol. There he was for several weeks. On the ground of economy there could be no worse course than to make criminals, because that is really what it amounts to in plain English. When I came into the House this evening, and heard the speech of the hon. Member for West Leicester, this particular case came across my mind, and I felt that I should not be doing justice to my constituents unless I let the Committee know the facts.
9.0 p.m.
I suggest that a great deal of juvenile crime arises from unemployment. We have found that to be the case in Monmouthshire in many instances. Quite recently a juvenile training centre has been opened in Abertillery, and I believe that it has led to a great reduction in juvenile offences. I suggest that that method of preventing juvenile crime might be extended, especially in the mining areas. Nothing can be more lamentable than to see young lads drifting into crime for lack of employment. It is not right to delude magistrates or the families of these boys into the belief that they are being sent into some industrial institution to learn a trade and to be prepared to earn their own livings at the expiration of their sentences, when as a matter of fact the boys are sent to a common gaol with men among whom there may be those who are sentenced to death. It is the duty of the Home Office
to see that adequate provision is made to prevent a scandal of this kind being repeated. I hope we shall have some assurance that adequate provision will be made for the training of these juveniles, so as to prevent their association with criminals in the gaols. I would also stress the point, that training centres should be more prevalent, so that these young boys may be taught to earn their living and thus be prevented from falling into crime.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Lieut. Colonel Sir Vivian Henderson): Hon. Members have raised a large number of questions during the Debate, and I would like if possible to deal with them as they were raised. It was suggested by the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) that the report of the Prison Commissioners is small, and another hon. Member suggested that it did not compare favourably with the report on the Scottish Prisons. I would reply that this particular report is rather different from previous reports, because it deals with a period of only nine months. Previous reports had covered a period of 12 months, but it was decided to bring these prison reports into conformity with the annual reports of prison statistics, which are published for the calendar year and not for the financial year, and to do that this particular report was confined to nine months instead of 12. For that reason it is shorter. I shall certainly ask my right hon. Friend, and I feel sure he will be glad, to consider any observations which have been made this afternoon in reference to future publications of this report, with the suggestion that it should include if possible the extracts which were formerly included but which have been omitted on this particular occasion.
The hon. Member asked whether the prison population had declined. It is a matter for gratification that we can all take to heart, that since the War there has been a very considerable decline in the prison population. But at the moment that decline is more or less stationary. The figures for the last year and the figures on which we base our Estimates this year show a very slight increase. This year's estimated figure is 11,250. In regard to the condition of prison buildings, the question is one
which has exercised the mind of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to a considerable extent, and also my own mind, but in this matter we are very largely bound by finance and by the amount of money which we can get from the Treasury to spend on these purposes. As far as possible, when closing prisons which become surplus to requirements, we endeavour to close those which we think are least likely to be useful to us from a structural point of view, bearing in mind the fact that we must have certain centres in certain parts of the country. The Committee will observe that on the Estimates for this year, money is to be voted for new workshops at Leeds and we are attempting to purchase additional land at Durham. That land, when we obtain it, as I hope we may be able to do at an early date, is to be used in part for workshops and in part for a recreation ground—another subject which has been mentioned in the course of the Debate. Every effort will be made to extract money from the Exchequer to improve the accommodation at the prisons and to improve the recreation and workshop facilities.
There is another purpose for which we are anxious to obtain money, and that is the substitution of electric light for gas in a great many prisons. Electric light is much more satisfactory, and if I may be allowed to diverge for a moment, I may say I am pleased that it has been possible in this year's Estimates to make a beginning with the substitution of electric light for gas in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Various questions have been asked regarding education. I think the considerable strides which have been made in educational work, in connection with prisons, during the past few years are not fully appreciated. At every prison there is an educational adviser, and the actual work of teaching is mainly carried out voluntarily by teachers—all honour to them—who give their assistance in the evenings. During the year 1925–26, there were 58 teachers employed in That way in various prisons. There are also employed 12 certificated teachers, and these teachers work under the inspection of the Board of Education. That, to some extent, meets the point which was raised by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones).

Mr. MORGAN JONES: I was speaking more particularly of the voluntary work, rather than that of the certificated teachers.

Sir V. HENDERSON: As far as the voluntary work is concerned, there, again, the educational adviser works in conjunction and in touch with the local education authority and in many cases in touch also with the Workers' Educational Association, to which the hon. Member also alluded. Not only is that work done, but a considerable amount of methodical elementary teaching is now given to the younger prisoners. I propose to return in a moment to the question of the younger prisoners. In local prisons any prisoner is eligible to attend evening classes, and the only restriction with regard to work of that kind is that where a man has a very short sentence, it is obviously not likely to benefit him to start a series of evening classes and, possibly, enter a class in the middle of the course and leave it before the course is finished.

Mr. COVE: Are those 12 teachers employed fully and solely by the Home Office; or is this voluntary or part-time employment?

Sir V. HENDERSON: They are fully employed and are on the Estimates. Young prisoners under 26 years of age receive special educational facilities, and during the year in question 9,000 prisoners attended evening classes. We are supplementing the educational work by providing the prisoners with books. I have gone into this question of the books myself to some extent during the short time I have been in this position, and the class of book now available shows a very great improvement on that which existed some years ago.

Mr. COVE: It needed a vast improvement.

Sir V. HENDERSON: It has improved and, as I say, I have gone into the question myself. There is now a circulating library at Maidstone which circulates books to all the prisoners in the country. Over and above that, at every prison there is arranged an annual programme of lectures and concerts. Some people criticise the giving of concerts in prisons because they say it is a pure amusement
but I do not agree with that view. I am a great lover of music and I am convinced that to those who appreciate and understand music—and these men are very often music lovers—attendance at good concerts is probably just as helpful from the educational and moral point of view as going to lectures or making use of other educational facilities. We have endeavoured, in regard to the question of educational facilities, to go even further than I have indicated by trying in the last few years to concentrate the younger prisoners at certain definite prisons. Hon. Members who are interested in this subject may know that we are now attempting to concentrate at Durham, Bristol and Wakefield the younger prisoners who are more amenable to educational treatment.
I recently visited Wakefield because I was anxious to study this question. There, they have developed a system which was mentioned in the course of the Debate and that is giving responsibility to the prisoners themselves. They work on a system of houses. In each house there is greater freedom than in the house below it and, according to his conduct, a man works up from one house to another. The head of the top house is really, except in name, not a prisoner at all. I am convinced that if that principle could be extended—and I hope we shall be able to extend it—it will fulfil a great purpose in eliminating from prison life men who, if properly handled at the beginning, would probably never come back to prison at all. But, as hon. Members know, these schemes have to be worked out very carefully and they are subject, to some extent, to consideration of finance, because all prisons are not like Wakefield, fitted for this purpose.
So far as education in convict prisons is concerned, in Maidstone, which takes what we call the starred convicts, that is to say, first offenders, they get the same educational facilities as are obtained at the ordinary prisons, but at Parkhurst and Dartmoor that is not entirely the case, and I think it must be obvious that it need not be the case, because the class of man who goes to Dartmoor or Parkhurst is not anything like as amenable to educational influences as is the other type of man. He is, without using any unkind expression, what we choose very often to call the more hardened type of criminal, the
recidivist, the man who has been in prison over and over again, often for long sentences; and, if that course of treatment were applied to him, it might not have any or much effect. But we are trying a system of limited education with some of the younger convicts at Dartmoor, and we are also trying a system of concerts and lectures both at Dartmoor and at Parkhurst. We are handicapped at Dartmoor because it is isolated, and it is much more difficult to get outside people there to come and give lectures or concerts than it is in other cases.
So far as Parkhurst is concerned, it would be quite wrong for me to bring in any personalities into this question. After all, the Committee knows quite well that this question arose in its acute form, if I may describe it that way, at least two years ago. It was first raised at least two years ago, and, although it has been raised during Question Time from time to time since that date, I would like to assure the Committee that the position at present is really not one which my right hon. Friend regards with any fear or feeling that the present Governor is in any way incapable of carrying out his work. We all know that on occasions, in governorships of prisons as in other walks of life, where you get a change of personalities you may get a change of system, but I do not believe, and neither does my right hon. Friend—and he has been down to Parkhurst quite recently to examine the question himself—the stories that the present Governor, in his handling of the prison inmates, is harsh and unreasonable. I do not believe that story for a moment. It may be quite true that the previous system of educational facilities which existed under the last Governor does not exist to exactly the same extent as it did, because the Director of Education in the Isle of Wight, who assisted the former Governor, does not assist the present Governor.

Mr. E. BROWN: Did he not resign because of the interference by the present Governor with the good work going on?

Sir V. HENDERSON: The present Governor is the Governor, and not the Director of Education of the Isle of Wight.

Mr. BROWN: And this is the House of Commons.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I know it is, but I would like the hon. Member to understand that the Governor of the prison is responsible to the Prison Commissioners and to the Home Secretary, and, if the Director of Education in the Isle of Wight thinks he is going to be the Governor of the prison, he is mistaken.

Mr. COVE: That does not tell us why the Director resigned.

Sir V. HENDERSON: He resigned through a difference with the existing Governor of the prison—a natural thing to happen. It happens frequently in other walks of life, but the Governor is responsible to the Prison Commissioners and to the Home Secretary, and he has the confidence of the Prison Commissioners and of the Home Secretary. [An HON. MEMBER: "So much the worse!"] That is a matter of opinion. I would like to assure the Committee that a system of lectures and concerts has been drawn up and is being carried out at Parkhurst, and a modified system of education is also being prepared by the new Educational Adviser, who has recently been appointed for the prison.
The hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) referred to the International Prison Commission and asked whether it was possible for them to collect certain information. I shall be glad to take that matter up and see-to what extent that is possible. The hon. Member knows as well as I do that the International Prison Commission is a very ancient body, dating back more than 50 years, and it is doing very valuable work, but it is an international, not a national, body, and we cannot do exactly as we desire on that body. We must be governed and guided to some extent by the desires and interests of the other nations, but I will certainly take up the point suggested by the hon. Member and see if it is in any way possible to obtain that information. He also asked me to what extent the recommendations of the Young Offenders' Committee are to be carried out by my right hon. Friend. A good many of those recommendations entail legislation, and it would he out of order, of course, for me to discuss those at the moment. Some of them are more appropriate to the Vote which follows this
one, and I think it would be better if I reserved any observations that I have to make on that point until we come to the Reformatory and Industrial Schools Vote.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: I do not want to be ruled out when we come to the next Vote, because some of these recommendations relate to persons between 16 and 21 years of age.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I know that. The principal point that the hon. Member made was, I think, the question of observation centres. He asked whether it would not be possible to carry that recommendation into effect without legislation. I am advised that it would require legislation, because it deals with individuals over 16 and under 16, and it would require legislation to carry that recommendation into effect so far as those over 16 are concerned. But I can tell the hon. Member this, that we have set up a small Committee in the Home Office to consider to what extent we can put this recommendation into effect in the London area. That Committee has not reported, but I hope that it will report to the Home Secretary at an early date, and if it is found in any way possible to take any action upon it, I am certain that my right hon. Friend will do so, because he has said more than once in this House that he is fully in sympathy with the general ideas in that Report. I feel sure, subject to any possible reservation which he may make—he made a long reply on the question a few months ago—and subject to the fact that some of these recommendations require legislation, that he will do his best to carry out any administrative reforms that he can.
I am sorry that I cannot give the Committee any information with regard to the success or the non-success of the appeal to the millionaires referred to by the hon. Member. I know my right hon. Friend was very hopeful of some kind of success being forthcoming quite recently, but I have not had much opportunity of discussing the question with him in the last few weeks, and I am afraid that I did not have an opportunity, owing to the fact that other and rather more important matters arose last week, of discuss-
ing this particular Vote with him before he left for Ireland. I think the hon. Member for Westhoughton made some observations as to why young men and women are sent to prison instead of being sent to a Borstal institution. He knows quite well that I cannot make any observations as to why magistrates pass particular sentences on particular people—it would be entirely out of order and improper for me to do so—but I would like to point out two things to him. One is that on more than one occasion my right hon. Friend has pointed out the desirability of boys and girls being sent to reformatory and industrial schools and Borstal institutions when they can conveniently be so treated; but, to obtain the benefit of a Borstal institution, the usual sentence is two to three years. If you are going to sentence a boy, because some small offence is committed, to a few weeks or a few months in prison, there is no object in Borstal organisation, because he would not get any benefit in that way. If you want to raise that question, you really want to raise it, not in regard to whether a boy ought to be committed to a Borstal institution instead of being committed to prison, but as to whether the whole system of probation should not be more highly developed than it is at the present time.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Surely the hon. and gallant Member has heard of the suggestion of a short time Borstal to which these young people could be sent instead of to prison.

Sir V. HENDERSON: Yes, I have, but I am not satisfied in my own mind that a short time Borstal would be a satisfactory solution of the question.

Mr. MAXTON: Has it ever been tried?

Sir V. HENDERSON: An experiment of short time sentences of that kind was tried, and it was not found satisfactory. I think it was tried in reference to some of the reformatory schools. I am speaking from memory.

Mr. MAXTON: He will recollect, in connection with Glasgow, the great success of the truant school that the Glasgow School Board established at Shettlestone where the maximum period of detention was three months and where they cured 98 per cent.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I remember that, but the boys who go to Borstal are considerably older than the boys who go to a truant school. I well remember the problem at Glasgow, because it is very much the same as the problem at Liverpool, and they are still the only two centres in the country that have day industrial schools. Leaving that question for the moment, I would like to deal with another small point raised by the hon. Member opposite, the question of police cells. He asked me whether they are inspected. It is quite true they are, and they are not allowed to be used unless the inspection is to the satisfaction of the Home Office. That is really a very small matter. In the Estimates, he will see that there is a very small sum, £100, allotted to the maintenance of persons in these cells, which comes under one of the provisions of the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1914. He will remember that imprisonment for less than five days was abolished by that Act, but there are some cases where it is considered desirable to give a few days detention rather than send the boy away to some distant prison. I would also remind him that the Committee, of which he was a member, definitely recommended, in connection with their recommendations on detention, that one day's detention at the police court or detention for four days was a useful alternative to sending to prison. We could have a very lengthy debate on the question of short or long sentences, but it would probably be quite out of order for me to discuss them at the present time.
With regard to sleepy sickness, it is stated on page 21 of the 1926 Report, in the medical part of the Report, that during the period under review no case of the onset of encephalitis lethargica occurred during detention in prison or in any Borstal institution. It shows that the whole question is carefully watched by the medical officers concerned. Where any question of mental defect is considered by the medical officer of the prison to exist, steps are now taken to transfer those persons to a prison which is specially adapted or where special treatment is given. Birmingham is one of those prisons. Cases are now dealt with in that way, so that the point raised by the hon. Member opposite is already covered. I cannot deal with the individual case he referred to, because
that again is a question of a sentence by a Court, and it would be out of order for me to comment upon it. The Prison Commissioners are following up this question and trying to eliminate prisoners apparently suffering from any mental defect.

Mr. OLIVER: Is the same treatment given to this kind of prisoner as would be given if they were sent to a mental institution?

Sir V. HENDERSON: They are dealt with very much more leniently and given a different type of treatment from that given to the ordinary prisoner. Whether they are dealt with in the same way as if they were sent to a mental institution, I cannot say offhand. I have not been able, personally, to look into the matter. I only wanted to assure him that the matter has not been overlooked, but is already being dealt with to a certain extent. I would like to remind the Committee that the passing of the Mental Deficiency Act last year also covered a certain amount of the recommendations of the Young Offenders Committee in regard to this question. The hon. Member for Leith (Mr. E. Brown) asked me whether Parkhurst had been visited in 1927. The answer is "Yes." The report covers only nine months of the year owing to a particular circumstance. It is a report of the visits by inspectors. It does not refer to the visits of the Prison Commissioners themselves. I can assure him that it was visited, and my right hon. Friend has himself quite recently visited Parkhurst. Another hon. Member made some reference to the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society. There, again, we are glad to take anything we can get out of the Treasury for the services not only to the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society but also to the Central Association, which deals with convicts, and the Borstal Association, which deals with Borstal prisoners. The aftercare of Borstal girls has quite recently been handed over to Miss Barker, the Governor of Aylesbury Prison, as she deals with all the girls there herself. It is not always possible to get all one hopes, but my right hon. Friend does very greatly appreciate the very fine work done by those three organisations in assisting prisoners on discharge from prisons, convict prisons or Borstal prisons. Any-
thing we can do to help or to encourage them, I can assure the Committee we shall do.
The hon. Member also made some reference to religion. I always think it is a subject one should approach with caution, but any person can apply to the Visiting Committee to change his religious denomination or classification, if he desires to do so, just as a soldier in the Army can apply for a change. I may, however, have misunderstood what the hon. Member skid, but if one were to allow any minister of any denomination to carry out a kind of canvass of prisoners, I am afraid that there would be a very unseemly scramble for souls. It would be very undignified and lead to very unfortunate occurrences, and it would, I am afraid, add considerably to the work of my right hon. Friend in this House. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Malone) raised certain questions in regard to Borstal committals. There, again, anything that can be done to encourage Courts to send boys to Borstal, instead of to prison, will certainly be done by my right hon. Friend.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: But you have not the accommodation.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I am aware of that fact; we have, so far as girls are concerned. You cannot dictate to Courts how they should deal with prisoners, or what sentences they should give. I would like to remind the Committee that the Borstal training has proved most successful where you get a boy there for two or three years, and can really have some influence upon him. I have yet to he convinced that the whole system of Borstal training is one which can be dealt with by short-term sentences. Therefore, I think that it is a mistake, and it will be impossible in future entirely to abolish every kind of imprisonment for boys under 21. It is, of course, something to which we should aim, but I do not think at the moment that it can be done; and, rather than have an experiment in short terms at Borstal, I should like to see some experiments in developing further the whole system of probation. The hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Ritson) dealt from his own personal experience with a very large number of questions in connection
with prisons, and I find difficulty in answering some of them, because they were questions of detail on which he has a far greater knowledge than I am ever likely to have.
I would like, however, to assure him en one or two points, which were points also raised by the hon. Member for Caerphilly. Every step is taken, with regard to clothing, to see that where clothing is handed over from one man to another, it is thoroughly and properly disinfected, and that in no case is it in a condition where it could give any disease to anybody. Dietary is a question which I went into personally: quite recently I went round and looked at the diets, and tasted some of them. I went without the authorities knowing I was coming, except two or three hours beforehand, so that they could not have prepared special dishes to bamboozle me. I assure the Committee that there has been, in the last few years, an improvement in the present diet which is very considerable. We all know that at the Borstal institutions, the feeding is very good indeed, but even in prisons the feeding has been greatly improved, particularly in variety, which is perhaps, after all, the most important thing. I do not honestly think that there is any reasonable ground for complaint on that score. Some of the other points, which the hon. Member for Durham raised, will be carefully studied and looked into, but I feel sure that he does not expect me to answer them without looking into them, He dealt with the question of the treatment of young offenders by chief constables, which, I know, has worked quite well in certain parts of the country, but the Young Offenders Committee did not report at all favourably on it.

Mr. RITSON: I was speaking from experience.

Sir V. HENDERSON: Anybody who speaks from experience is entitled to sympathetic consideration, but I was only drawing the hon. Member's attention to the fact that his opinion is in conflict with another opinion which we have to consider. He can rest assured that what he has said will be carefully considered. I am aware of the fact that many of the chief constables in the north and north-east of England are men of great
ability, who carry out sometimes a very difficult task very successfully. The hon. Member for West Leicester (Mr. Pethick-Lawrence), who always speaks with great knowledge and sympathy on these questions, drew my attention to the fact that executions at Wandsworth have a very bad effect on young persons. I would like to tell him frankly that I fully appreciate what he has said. It is not always easy to avoid executions at particular prisons. Prisoners cannot always be moved about from one part of the country to another after they have been sentenced, but if it be in any way possible to meet the bon. Gentleman's point—and I will look into it—I shall be happy to do it, because I agree that, if Wandsworth is to be used as a prison for young people, as it is used at the present time, it is most desirable that any demoralising effects, which can be avoided, should not exist. I promise that I will look into that point to see if we can avoid it in future.
With regard to corporal punishment, I would remind the hon. Gentleman that it is only given in prisons for gross personal violence on an officer, and, as he himself fairly stated, only eight cases of corporal punishment have been given in the year under review. Therefore, I do not think that it can be said that it is given without consideration, or that it is given frivolously. In every one of these cases, there is the right of revision by the Secretary of State, and in several cases where punishment was awarded the Secretary of State did not concur, and the punishment did not take place. I do not quite know what the hon. Member for Caerphilly meant in reference to the publication of Regulations, but the bulk of the present Regulations are published in the Statutory Rules and Orders, and I am under the impression that they lay on the Table of the House. If the hon. Gentleman has in mind any particular Regulation about which he has been unable to obtain information, and if he will comunicate with me, I shall be able to give him information.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: I am afraid I had in mind a controversy which arose a few years ago.

Sir V. HENDERSON: With regard to searching, while I appreciate what the
hon. Gentleman says, he must realise that, if we entirely abolish searching, we would lay ourselves open to very serious consequences in convict prisons, for prisoners might be able to carry means of escape or weapons of defence or offence. While certain things may have happened in the past—and the hon. Member was, I think, speaking from experiences in the past—I have no reason to believe that it is normally carried to excess, but I am quite willing to look into the question. In regard to exercise grounds, wherever we can obtain increased facilities we will do so. One of the purposes we have in mind in purchasing this additional land at Durham is to provide improved opportunities for exercise. As far as trades are concerned, I found a little difficulty in following the hon. Member. If a man committed to prison has a particular trade, it seems quite reasonable that he should continue to follow that trade, if opportunities are available.
I quite agree that the present position as to teaching trades in prison is open to criticism, because there is not that variety which, perhaps, ought to exist. To provide really up-to-date methods of teaching trades would cost a great deal more money than we would ever be able to extract from the Treasury under existing circumstances—I went into that question only the other day—but we are making special efforts in those prisons in which we concentrate the younger prisoners to try to teach them something which will be of value to them. There are instructors to teach them who are highly skilled and highly trained, and I am convinced from what I have seen that they do the best they can to help the boys to take an interest in their work. That many of the boys do take a considerable interest in their work I can tell from talking to them. Regarding what the hon. Member for Abertillery (Mr. Barker) said, I would like to remind him that a sentence of committal to Borstal can only be passed at quarter sessions, and therefore I do not know to what he was referring, because a petty sessional Court cannot commit a boy to Borstal.

Mr. BARKER: I was referring to the Magistrates who sent him to quarter sessions.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I am afraid I did not quite follow the hon. Member. I thought he spoke about the Magistrates who committed the boy to Borstal.

Mr. OLIVER: Do not Magistrates preside at quarter sessions?

Sir V. HENDERSON: Yes, but I thought the hon. Member was referring to Magistrates in the petty sessional Courts. I have endeavoured to the best of my ability to cover most of the points raised in the Debate, and, in conclusion, I would like to say there is no part of the work of the Home Office in which either my right hon. Friend or I take a greater interest, or to which we are prepared to devote more of our time, and we are always prepared to consider sympathetically any recommendations brought to our notice for reforming the prison system. I think we can claim that on the whole we treat prisoners in this country with a greater humanity than does any country in the world.

Mr. MAXTON: No.

Sir V. HENDERSON: The hon. Member says, "No." Probably he has experience of Russia, or some other country where more humane methods are followed.

Mr. MAXTON: I have never been in Russia in my life. I am prepared to say that in England you treat prisoners better than they are treated in Scotland, but it is not in accordance with the facts to say that British prisons are better than European prisons generally.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I have seen some foreign prisons, and without wishing to say anything which can cause any strain in our foreign relations. I am prepared to say that I have never seen any prisons which in any way compare with our own. We are prepared always to consider proposals which will improve the system of prison administration in this country, and I appreciate all the points which have been raised, and which have been put forward, not with any partisan view, but with a real desire to assist the administration of the prison system.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: The hon. and gallant Member has certainly tried to meet the point raised by my hon. Friends, by the Noble Lord the Member for South Nottingham (Lord
H. Cavendish-Bentinck), and by the hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham (Captain Cazalet), and other Members of his own party, but with his concluding sentences I absolutely and utterly disagree. I do not say that our prisons are worse than those of other countries, but I do say that history will write that one of the worst blots on the present social system is the mal-treatment of persons committed to prison. By maltreatment I do not mean cruelty; I mean treatment which does not reform them, and which we see reflected in the enormous number of recidivists who still crowd our prisons. The figures are very terrible indeed, and show there is something radically wrong, and I would appeal to the Committee on the grounds of economy if on no other grounds, to reduce the number of people committed to prison. What does it cost to keep a man in prison? In local prisons the annual cost is £80, in convict prisons £109, in preventive detention prisons £133, and in Borstal institutions £106. There would be an immense saving if we could alter our treatment of and our attitude towards first offenders especially, and youthful prisoners in particular, to avoid committing them to prison. In 1925—and the 1926 figures are very little better—we had in our prisons 19,375 persons who had three or more previous convictions, and we had 5,220 with 20 or more convictions.
It is obvious from that and from many other facts which could be quoted that our system, especially in dealing with first offenders, is perfectly hopeless. To the ordinary citizen, it does not matter in what rank he may be, going to prison means the crossing of a border line. Once a person has been in prison the taint of the gaol is upon him or her, and the difficulty of getting employment afterwards is very terrible. The hon. and gallant Member for Chippenham referred to the work of the Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society. For some years I have been associated with the same society, and know the difficulties. It is not the Puritans alone who object to employing discharged prisoners. I am afraid public opinion is against the ex-convict or the ex-prisoner, even if he has been to prison for only a week, and that makes it very difficult for that person to get employment again, and to go straight. Look at the position. The
Borstal system does give us an opportunity of reclaiming the young wrongdoer and preventing him becoming an habitual criminal. It is admitted that we are short of Borstal accommodation to-day and that no more lads can be sent there. We have been told that we cannot have more Borstal institutions unless the money is provided by some philanthropic millionaire.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I did not say that the provision of Borstal accommodation depended upon a gift of that kind. I said that I could not give the necessary information in the absence of the Home Secretary.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Sonic time ago I asked the Home Secretary whether he was still looking for a donor of £100,000 to provide Borstal accommodation, and he admitted that the Treasury had refused to find more money for this purpose. I have in my hand a copy of the speech made by the Home Secretary on that occasion, and he said:
Is there no rich man who will give me £100,000 for this purpose and immortalise his name for ever?
My complaint is that the Home Secretary is not here to defend his own statements. I think that is a scandalous state of affairs under which you are manufacturing habitual criminals, because you have not got the necessary Borstal accommodation for young lads who could be saved from a life of crime by special treatment. We can afford to spend £800,000,000 which has to be provided for in the Budget, and we can even spend £14,000,000 on constructing two battleships, and yet we cannot afford £100,000 to provide extra Borstal accommodation. We have just been told that our prisons are better than any other prisons in the world. I notice in the Return of the Prison Commissioners that at the present time there are young boys in prison for kicking footballs in the street. The reason for that is that we have not got enough playing fields for the boys, and that is why they have to kick footballs in the street. For doing that, they are sent to prison and in that way a life of crime begins. Perhaps these boys come into contact with hardened convicts and then they go from crime to crime.

Mr. DIXEY: Does the hon. and gallant Gentleman say that boys are actually im-
prisoned for kicking a football in the street?

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Mr. Dennis Herbert): It is out of order on this Vote to discuss matters which require legislation, or to criticise the action of magistrates.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I was not proposing to criticise the action of the magistrates. At the present time prison treatment is not administered in such a way as to reclaim prisoners, but it is looked upon as a punishment, with the result that the prisoners go from bad to worse. The Reports of the Prison Commissioners make the most horrible reading. I am sorry that we cannot discuss legislation to alter this state of things, because the present treatment simply manufactures criminals. Most hon. Members have read in the papers the history of those men who are about to die under sentence of death for murder. The man Browne was charged with theft in his first offence, and he declares that he did not mean to steal at all. He was sent to prison, with the result that he became such a rebel against society that a life of crime followed. That sort of thing happens in thousands of cases, and yet when the Estimates come up for discussion the Home Secretary cannot be in his place to hear our grievances. It is becoming increasingly common for Ministers to absent themselves when the Estimates for their Departments are under discussion. One day it is the First Lord of the Admiralty and another day it is the Home Secretary. I think it is their duty to be present to defend their Estimates, and hear the suggestions and complaints which my hon. Friends make from these benches.
10.0 p.m.
I was very glad to hear the Under-Secretary state that he is going to bring to the Home Secretary's notice the extraordinary case of Wandsworth Prison. This is a prison where the whole of the juvenile offenders in London and the home counties are sent, and yet we actually carry out capital punishment at that prison. The effect of an execution on other prisoners is very bad indeed. The prisoners have their own means of communication, the atmosphere is electric, the tolling of the bell on the morning of the execution is heard, and the hour of the execution is well known. The
atmosphere is horrible and the erect on juveniles must be terrible. Is it really contended that you cannot send men under sentence of death to another prison for execution instead of sending them to Wandsworth? I am glad the Under-Secretary has promised to look into this matter, but it ought not to be necessary for hon. Members to have to suggest these matters, because they ought to occur to the Home Secretary himself, and executions should not be allowed to take place at the juvenile prison for the Metropolis.
The other matter that I want to raise is the treatment of mental deficients and, especially, of cases of acute alcoholism. I think it will be admitted that there is a tremendous number of people in gaol to-day who are either mentally deficient or are suffering from such a degree of alcoholism that they ought to be, not in gaol, but in a mental or other hospital. I have here the Report of the Prison Commissioners for the year 1923–24 in which the Governor of Leicester Prison said:
It is regrettable that when prisoners are certified to be mentally defective they should he compelled to remain in prison for two or three months or more, before an institution can be found for them. Though these eases improve here, prison is not the place for them.
I want to ask the hon. and gallant Gentleman if that has now been remedied. Is there any shortage of suitable institutional accommodation for mental cases, or do they still have to remain for two or three months in gaol?

Sir V. HENDERSON: The question of institutional accommodation is a matter for the Ministry of Health.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: What is the Home Office doing about it?

Sir V. HENDERSON: If the hon. and gallant Member had listened to my speech, he would have heard me deal with that matter.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I know that the hon. and gallant Gentleman made that defence, but I hope that the Home Office is taking some active steps. Why does not the Home Office have a special prison, if people who are mentally deficient have to be kept in prison? We have special prisons for women, who used to be herded with men;
and now we have special prisons for young people, who used to be herded with adults. Why not have special prisons for those who are below par, either mentally or, which is often the same thing, physically, through acute alcoholism It seems absurd to keep these people under the ordinary prison conditions. They undoubtedly interfere with the ordinary prison treatment of the remainder, and they hamper the whole work of reforming the prisoner, which, after all, should be the first duty. The International Conference of Prison Authorities, for which £1,000 was allowed last year, has been referred to, and I see that at that conference a special resolution was passed on this matter. I am quoting here from the Report for 1925–26, on page 61 of which a resolution is quoted which states:
It is desirable that abnormal adults showing dangerous tendencies should be sent by the judicial authorities to non-penal institutions or colonies in which they should be subject to appropriate treatment and detained until conditionally discharged by the competent authority.
To that resolution our own delegates at the conference agreed, and I would like to know whether anything is being done along those lines, or are we simply carrying on with the old out-of-date prison buildings, and, I am afraid, in many cases, the old out-of-date methods also? The chaplain of Holloway Prison, in the last Report but one, spoke of the scandal of the present method of sentencing alcoholics and deficients, and he said that, if only we could make possible some different treatment of these human derelicts in suitable settlements, huge unwieldy establishments like Holloway could be closed down for ever. That proposal, and others like it, would mean immense savings in expenditure in the long run on the whole prison service. If the old notion of punishment could be got rid of, and if most of these cases were looked upon as cases for reclamation and not for penal treatment, the result would be to cut down enormously the number of recidivists, and still further to cut down the number of prison establishments. That would mean an enormous saving, not only in money, but in human misery and degradation. It is not only the unfortunate prisoner who suffers, but also his family and relatives, and society also suffers when he is released again.
I am sure that there is no social service from which greater results could be obtained in a shorter time than a thorough overhaul and reform of the whole prison system of this country. I admit that reforms have been made; that is proved by the continual reductions in the prison population, and the closing up of prisons in various parts of the country shows that we are getting on; but there is an immense distance still to travel, and, because I think that the Home Office is apathetic about these matters, I hope that my hon. Friends will vote to-night in the Lobby for the reduction which has been moved. We are not satisfied with the attitude of the Government towards this whole question and I can only repeat what I said at the beginning, that the question of the additional cost of accommodation, for which the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not find the money, is a standing disgrace and scandal of which this Government ought to be thoroughly ashamed.

Mr. GROTRIAN: I think that my hon. and gallant colleague the Member for Central Hull (Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy) must have been speaking with his tongue in his cheek, because, although T have been a magistrate in several counties for a considerable number of years, I have never heard of boys being sent to prison for playing football in the streets, nor was I aware, until I came here to-night, that playing football in the streets was an offence punishable by imprisonment. When, therefore, the hon. and gallant Member talks about manufacturing criminals in that way, I do not think he can be quite serious.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: I must correct the hon. and learned Gentleman. He has said that I was speaking with my tongue in my cheek, but I have here the "Manchester Guardian" of the 2nd December last, in which an account is given of the Sheffield magistrates having sent a local boy to prison for playing football in the streets. The case was adversely commented upon by the hon. and learned Member for Norwood (Sir W. Greaves-Lord), who is the Recorder of Manchester, and he criticised this and other short sentences.
Boys have also been sent to prison for gaming in the streets, and I hope that the hon. and learned Member will remember that on Derby Day.

Mr. GROTRIAN: I am not surprised that the decision was adversely criticised. I should say that it was absolutely illegal to send a boy to prison for playing football in the streets. The point that I rose to emphasise is in regard to the appeals that have been made for short terms of Borstal treatment. If a young offender is sent to prison, I understand that he gets Borstal treatment in prison, and, therefore, the lack of Borstal accommodation is not so serious as it might appear on the face of it; but I would say that, if it is necessary to punish a young offender at all, the proper way is not to send him either to prison or to a Borstal institution, but to put him on probation, and no sensible magistrate who has had any experience at all would send a young first offender to prison, or send him for either a short or a long term of Borstal treatment. Indeed, a magistrate cannot send a boy to Borstal at all; he has to be sent to Quarter Sessions before than can be done, and, as I have said, really the proper thing to do is to put him on probation. Therefore, although it might be very nice to get some millionaire, as the hon. and gallant Gentleman says, to provide further Borstal institutions, I think, although we may not have enough Borstal institutions, we achieve the same results in the long run by giving young offenders Borstal treatment in prison and keeping them separate from the other prisoners. I think there is great substance in his point that this sort of treatment should not go on in prisons where there are a great many criminals and where capital punishment is carried out. Although I am sorry to have to disagree with him upon several other points I agree with him in that.

Mr. VIANT: In prison administration there are occasions when repairs and alterations have to be effected, and I understand as far as possible the prison labour that is available is utilised for that purpose. I am given to understand that quite recently alterations or repairs have been done at Brixton and a large number of prisoners, who were accustomed when they were outside citizens to follow the building trade, were em-
ployed. The available labour was not sufficient and civilian labour was employed upon the work. Certain building trade operatives reported that they have had to associate with prisoners engaged in the work and some of them took strong exception to it. Representations were made to me and I was asked to raise the matter in the House. After consultation with representatives of the unions concerned we came to the opinion that it was not desirable to raise the issue. We are in agreement with the prison authorities putting these men to work at their former trade. We believe keeping them at work in their ordinary avocation is of great advantage to them and must undoubtedly have a beneficial and reformative effect. We have been able to persuade the men that it is in the general interests that this practice should continue. Quite recently, I have had occasion to correspond with the Home Office in connection with another matter where cells were being altered, and a request was made that building trade operatives should be engaged upon the work. To our astonishment, the prisoners were not engaged on that work, but the letter that we received from the Home Office stated that the work in question would have to be done in close proximity to the corridor where prisoners were kept and that in this connection the Home Secretary attached importance to the consideration that outside labour ought not to be brought into contact with the occupants of police cells.
Having persuaded the operatives concerned that it was to the general interest that they should continue their work in Brixton prison by the side of the prisoners, it becomes somewhat difficult for us to persuade the men concerned that the Home Office was logical in giving a reply such as I have already read out stating that it was undesirable that outside labour should in any way be associated with the occupants of police cells. Personally, I am unable to appreciate the difference and the distinction that is made in this respect. The only reason that we can advance for the Home Office attempting to draw the line of distinction is that, instead of prisoners being used for the purpose of effecting the alterations in these cells, police labour is being used instead. It is being done on the grounds
of economy, and I think we are entitled to object to police labour being used to do the work that should be done by outside mechanics. The ordinary citizen, after all is said and done, has to foot the bill, and, if a man joins the police force, whether he be a skilled mechanic or otherwise, his time and services should be spent in police duties, and at no time be used for the purpose of doing work that otherwise would be done by building trade operatives or mechanics. I shall be pleased if the hon. and gallant Gentleman in charge of these Estimates will explain to the Committee the reason why building trade operatives should be expected to associate with prison labour in Brixton, but that when it comes to Brighton the plea advanced is that it is undesirable that outside building operatives should associate with occupants of a prison cell. I hope I shall have a reply on the point I have raised.

Mr. MAXTON: I do not want to detain the Under-Secretary unduly in the arduous task that has been left to him by his Chief to-day, but there are one or two points in which I am interested and would like to raise. I regret to see in the Report that there is still a large number of persons—12,704—who have been sent to prison for periods of two weeks or less. I do not know how far the Home Office have influence with the judiciary, but it seems to me a tremendous waste of public money to send people to prison for a fortnight, or less. If they are not worth more than a fortnight, they are not worth anything.

The CHAIRMAN: That is not the responsibility of the Prison Commissioners; it is the responsibility of the magistrates.

Mr. MAXTON: An examination of the Report shows that the two things act and react on one another and that the Home Office does exercise an influence on the magistrates to put prisoners on probation and to give the option of a fine, and time for payment.

The CHAIRMAN: The argument that was advanced earlier with regard to mental cases was in order, because it was suggested that the Home Office could find other institutions for them, and could do it without legislation; but I do not think
it would be in order to criticise on the present Vote the sentences by magistrates, and their discretion.

Mr. MAXTON: It is, at least, within my right to express regret that so much of the present accommodation should be taken up by persons who are only in prison for one week or a fortnight, at the outside. Out of the total number of 40,000 or so prisoners more than one-quarter were in for very short periods. It must add very considerably to the expense of prison administration to have people going in for short sentences, because a tremendous proportion of the labour cast upon the prison officials lies in the original reception of the person on entering, the taking of the particulars of the prisoner, the storing away of his property and clothing and the return to him of these things at the end of his period. All this registration work, etc., has to be done in regard to people who have committed the most trivial offences. A person who is sent to prison for a fortnight or a week has usually committed some very trivial offence.

The CHAIRMAN: The Prison Commissioners have to take those who are sent to them. They do not ask for them, and they do not send them there themselves.

Mr. MAXTON: I accept your rulings, but if you would examine the report of the Prison Commissioners on which we have to base our discussion of the operations of the Home Office you would find that there is detailed in the report of the Prison Commissioners not a report of the law courts but details of the various offences for which persons are sent to prison, such as larceny, false pretences, offences of a fraudulent nature, burglary, housebreaking, sexual offences, receiving, bigamy and so forth. Is it wrong for the Prison Commissioners to put these things in their Report?

The CHAIRMAN: No, but the hon. Member is criticising the Prison Commissioners for the acts of those who send the prisoners to them. That is a little unfair on the Prison Commissioners, who have to receive the people who are sent to them.

Mr. MAXTON: Is it unfair for me to aid the Prison Commissioners in protest-
ing against certain persons being sent to them?

The CHAIRMAN: Perhaps the hon. Member might conceivably do that on the Home Office Vote, but not on the Vote for these unhappy people, who have to carry out these distasteful duties which are imposed upon them.

Mr. MAXTON: I will keep my eyes open for a suitable opportunity of dealing with this particular phase of the problem and devote myself entirely to what comes legitimately within the scope of the Vote. I listened to the Under-Secretary, particularly when he was dealing with the educational work inside the prisons. I heard him say that twelve schoolmasters were employed on educational work in the prisons. I have looked carefully through the book and failed to find any Vote which provides for the employment of 12 schoolmasters. I find that in 1927 there were six so-called schoolmasters, and that the number has been reduced to four in 1928. Where are the other eight? Have they escaped from their prison service? I look across the page, and I find that the remuneration of these schoolmasters ranges from 55s. to 65s. per week, by increments of 2s. This is a trade with which I used to be connected, and I should be very much surprised if the Home Office are able to get properly qualified, trained teachers at such salaries. I hope the hon. and gallant Member will agree that they are not schoolmasters in the sense that they have received any training for this particular task, but that they are prison warders of the ordinary status who have, perhaps, a little more education than the rest of their fellows, and have been given the grade of schoolmaster with an extra Is. or 2s. per week for carrying out this function in a perfunctory manner in addition to their other prison duties.
I know from experience how this has been worked in the past, and that a prison warder who happens to be a skilled engineer, or a skilled woodworker, is graded as a first-class warder and called an artisan warder. One has a little knowledge of drugs and first aid, and he is graded as a doctor's assistant. He does all the work for the medical man. He diagnoses your complaint and prescribes the appropriate remedy, and it does not matter whether you have a
stomach complaint or have to do your hair—you get the same thing. Having given certain men their grade as artisans, others as medical assistants, they look around to see if there is some decent fellow who ought to be graded and get an extra 2s. per week, and they make him a schoolmaster, as being good for nothing else. I quite approve of the humane motive of the governor of the prison who wants to remunerate a decent fellow a little better. I can appreciate a desire on the part of the governor to remunerate these fellows a little better, but to come here and boast about the educational work that is being done in the prisons is to attempt to deceive the House of Commons and the country.
It seems to me that this is the point at which the next advance has to be made in prison treatment in this country. In regard to educational work in prisons, the man you want is not some second-rate warder or some second-rate teacher, but a most highly skilled, medical psychologist, if I may coin the phrase, who has had a special training in medicine and who understands something about mental diseases, one who has had a very special training in psychology. A prisoner is a very curious person, and requires to be diagnosed. I think the supporters of the present system classify him too easily as a waster, and consider that the best thing you can do is to shut him up—adopt a punitive attitude towards him. The social reformer, on the other hand, takes much too easy an attitude by saying that the prisoner is the unfortunate on whom you should let loose all your Christian love, with charity on the top of it. Both views are much too easy. This is a serious problem which has to be tackled by men specially trained and specially interested in the study of the human brain, and particularly in the study of the somewhat out-of-the-ordinary human brain that goes to the making of the criminal. To tackle this very important problem with a 55-shilling a week warder, rising by two-shillings a week to 65-shillings, seems to me to be a trivial way for a great nation to do this work.
Then the hon. and gallant Gentleman, in another connection, almost boasted—
he finished up by waving the Union Jack—that we had the finest prison system in the world. That is not true. One or two of the Scandinavian countries can show us a tremendous lot of things that we do not tackle. Most of the European countries, including Russia, at which the hon. and gallant Gentleman gibed, treat their political prisoners very much better than the British Government do. [Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh. Up to now that has only been a serious matter for those on the Labour Benches, but in future it may be a serious matter for those on the benches opposite. That is well worthy of hon. Members' consideration. Remember this: A charge of sedition all depends on who happen to form the Government at the moment. I can imagine the hon. Member for Penrith (Mr. Dixey) walking around the prison yard, with his short trousers and his striped stockings and cocked hat, or writing letters in his spare time to the Home Secretary, who might be the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. Rhys Davies) below me, asking to be placed in the First Division, instead of the Third, "because it is only a political offence." Hon. Members opposite should try to use a little vision. They should try to peer into the future and not always persuade themselves that because they are now on top they will always be on top.

Mr. DIXEY: What I was thinking was that in Russia there were no prisoners at all for sedition they were all killed.

Mr. MAXTON: That is not true, of course, but it is good enough for the platform. It is good propaganda, but it is not true.

The CHAIRMAN: I would point out to both hon. Members that there is no Vote for Russian prisons before the Committee.

Mr. MAXTON: It has happened, as se often happens, that evil communications have corrupted good manners. Comparisons have been made between the prison system of England and that of other countries, and I followed the same line. My hon. Friend the Member for Penrith knows that I have no desire to see him in prison. I would rather adopt what he alleges is the Russian method, and get rid of him.

The CHAIRMAN: Even to deal with the hon. Member for Penrith in that way would require legislation.

Mr. MAXTON: I think it would be almost worth it. In support of the view that the British system is the finest system in the world, the Under-Secretary told us that the authorities ran concerts for the prisoners at night. A concert occasionally in prison is a brightening thing in a prisoner's life, but I think that concerts should be arranged with a great deal more discretion and a great deal more kindly feeling than at present. I can remember one very cold and miserable day. The prison was badly heated; the porridge was as porridgy as usual; the sour milk was as sour as usual; and the door mats were as nasty and awkward to make as they always were. After spending 12 hours on this, one was taken up into the prison hall to hear a concert, and the first song, sung by a young lady, was, "When you come to the end of a perfect day." That seems to be bad, psychologically. It makes for revolt, and for reaction which ought not to occur, since music is supposed to be an elevating, stimulating and uplifting element in prison life. But I would put this matter to the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under-Secretary quite seriously. It is always dangerous to joke about these matters here, because the assumption is that if you joke about a subject you do not feel seriously about it. There is nothing in the region of social reform that I would rather see during my period in Parliament than the tackling of this particular branch of public work in a serious and intelligent way.
I am sure the Under-Secretary could do a tremendous lot, if he would remember that, in connection with the prisons and in the operation of the prison system, there are, as one of my hon. Friends has already pointed out, a great many experts who have spent all their lives under this prison system. It is particularly difficult for a man who has spent his life in the prison service not to become a cynic and a scoffer. But the Home Office acts on the advice of these men who have spent their whole lives in the prison service. Let me say, in fairness to the prison officers I have met, that it has been a surprise to me
that after a lifetime spent in this class of work they should have retained so much of the milk of human kindness as one finds in them. At the same time, as regards the general system, these men are inclined to be cynical about the possibilities of making any impression upon the criminal type.
Therefore, I hope the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary in making their decisions will not be guided completely by the advice of the experts, but that they will conclude that the view of the man in the street in this matter is worth hearing. I wish the hon. and gallant Gentleman could see his way, also, to get the view on these matters of the man who has been in prison. There have been many Royal Commissions and other Commissions of one kind and another in connection with the prison system, but seldom has a man who has himself been in prison given evidence at any of these inquiries. There are many very intelligent people who have been in prison and who could give to the Home Office the view of the prison which the prisoner gets. There is no good in seeing the man while he is in prison. He will not tell the truth even to a Home Secretary. You have to see men who have been in prison but who have been out of it for some time, and who can look back on their experiences and talk about those experiences in an objective way. If the Home Secretary and the Under-Secretary put their minds to the task of saving the prisoners and preventing the reproduction of criminals in our midst, I am sure that it is a branch of work which will have great fruits in a very short time.

Sir V. HENDERSON: By leave of the Committee, I would like to reply to one or two points that have been mentioned since I last spoke. The hon. and learned Member for South-West Hull (Mr. Grotrian) asked certain questions with regard to mental deficients. I have already tried to explain that special steps are now taken, where a man is committed to prison and the prison doctor thinks that man is of a low state of mental efficiency, without actually being certifiable, to transfer that man to a special prison. That is a new departure which is being developed, and it will be watched carefully, and, if successful, further developed, probably along the lines which the hon. and learned Member for South-
West Hull desired. With regard to what he said about alcoholism, I have made inquiries, and I understand that there are practically no alcoholics in prison at all. There are one or two possibly in Holloway, but apart from that there are practically none. As is known, the whole question of alcoholism has largely decreased, and the problem is largely nonexistent so far as the prison population is concerned.
The hon. Member for West Willesden (Mr. Viant) has had discussions with me on the question of the employment of prison labour and outside labour, and he asked me why it was that, whereas in Brixton Prison we allowed outside labour to be employed alongside prison labour, when it came to another prison—which he did not quote, but I believe he was referring to Brighton—we did not adopt the same attitude. I would like to remind him that Brighton is under a Watch Committee, and that the Home Secretary is not in direct control of what the police do or do not do in Brighton. The police there are under a Watch Committee, and apart from the Metropolitan Police the Home Secretary has not direct control of the actions of the police in other parts of the country, particularly on administrative questions of this kind. But you really cannot compare the two cases. In Brixton you have your prisoners under sentence, working under warders, and working with free labour, which, as the hon. Member says, from certain moral aspects is probably a very good thing. I quite agree, and I appreciate his attitude on that question.
In Brighton, the Watch Committee required to make certain alterations to the police station, to fix up some shelving in connection with the lost property office, so far as I remember. The hon. Member did not tell me that he was going to raise the question to-day, and I am speaking from memory of what occurred some weeks ago, but I understand that they required to fix some shelving in connection with improvements to their lost property office in the police station, and for that purpose they required to take away scene existing shelving beside some of the police cells. Under normal circumstances it would not have been necessary, if that work had been done by the
police storekeeper, who is a carpenter, to have had anybody else, but if that work had been done by an outside workman, it was obvious that you would have had to have either a policeman or a warder standing there all the time, as otherwise it would be quite easy for all the prisoners in cells to have attempted to communicate with the individual who was carrying on the work. That would put him in an unfair and impossible position, in which I am quite certain no outside individual would desire to be put. Therefore, it is not fair to say that the two questions are the same and that if we took up one attitude on the one case we were illogical because we took up a different attitude on the other.
My right hon. Friend looked at the case and decided that the attitude of the Watch Committee was one with which he had no power to interfere, and, as the hon. Member knows, the power of the Secretary of State to interfere with a watch committee in cases of this kind is extremely limited. He can only suggest or recommend. I fully appreciate what the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) said with regard to the prison services, and I would like to apologise to him if I misled him with regard to the 12 certificated teachers, because these are not included on page 31 of the Estimates. They are among the evening teachers on page 33, and they are not full-time teachers. They are employed at teaching in evening classes, although I was quite correct in stating that they were under the direction of the Education Committee.
I would like to remind him, with regard to his somewhat disparaging remarks as to the status of the schoolmasters on the previous page, that their salaries have to be considered in relation to certain allowances. Therefore, it is not quite fair to take their salaries without realising that the prison officials are entitled to certain personal allowances that bring their pay up to a higher level.

Mr. MAXTON: But it is less than the engineers.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I do not agree in the least with the hon. Member's observations with regard to the people who have been employed in prisons for any length of time being cynical. I have been very much struck with the fact that many of the people who work in and
around the prisons as officials are frequently some of the most humane and compassionate people in the world. One for whom I have very great admiration and have looked upon as one of the most humane women I have ever met is a chief wardress in a prison.

Mr. MAXTON: I would not like to be misunderstood on this important point. I did not mean to use the word "cynical" in that way. I meant that they were cynical as to the possibilities of altering the system and not cynical about human beings.

Sir V. HENDERSON: I beg the hon. Member's pardon if I misunderstood him. I am sure my right hon. Friend welcomes outside criticism or assistance of any kind. Although I am not sure it is possible in the immediate future to set up a kind of advisory committee of ex-convicts and prisoners such as the hon. Gentleman suggested, I am certain that there is something to be said for his point of view. It is the kind of point of view which Edgar Wallace would be delighted to develop into a most interesting story. In conclusion, I would like to say that if the future, as envisaged by the hon. Member opposite turns out as badly as he suggests, I hope my great knowledge of the inside of prisons will stand me in good stead.

Mr. HAYES: In the few moments which are left, I want to ask one or two questions. I should like to draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to what is regarded in many quarters as the under-staffing of prisons consequent upon the development of reforms in the prison services. In that particular connection, I would like to direct his attention to the practice obtaining in some prisons of the clerical side having to work either undue overtime, or, in some cases of the clerks themselves—foolishly, but nevertheless doing it—taking home work in order to finish it. There is no such thing as overtime, or, at any rate, very little is paid for in the prison services so far as the clerks are concerned. If the prisons are under-staffed it certainly is undesirable that the clerks should complete their work by taking it home. In any case, arrangements ought to be made—not so much that the clerks should have time off, perhaps, because that would mean that they would have to do the work at some other time—and I hope he will
give some attention to what is becoming a somewhat undesirable practice. The other question is one with regard to the temporary officers employed in prisons. They are engaged for longer hours than the ordinary prison officers. Their hours are about 10, and I hope that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will find some way of meeting that question. Hours in prison are not very pleasant, even for prison officers, and if they can be reduced to eight, it will be appreciated, and a better return in service will be obtained.
In regard to the attitude of the Prison Commissioners towards the establishment of an appeal tribunal for prison officers, who may be found guilty of certain offences, the practice that obtains at the present time is for an officer to have a right of appeal from the Inspector of Prisons to the Prison Commissioners, and nominally to the Home Secretary. The prisoner officers are rarely, if ever, seen by the Commissioners, and the decision by the Home Secretary is given on paper. It is said that the appointment of these tribunals is as hardly necessary in the prison service as in the police service, because the two services are not alike, but the experience that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has had now of the working of the tribunals that were set up by the Act of Parliament of 1927 in the police service, has been so satisfactory, and almost soothing to the police in matters of their dismissal, that it will be a very excellent thing to introduce in the prison service; and as members of the prison service themselves have persistently asked for it, I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to reconsider his view in this respect.
The final question which I want to put is whether it is possible to make it clear to all prison officers what are their rights under the various Superannuation Acts. It is a very big question, and a very old one, going back to 1834, and it is very difficult for them thoroughly to understand their position. I am hoping that the hon. and gallant Gentleman's Department may be able to do something to consolidate the position, which at the present moment is a very difficult one.

Viscountess ASTOR: Has the hon. and gallant Gentleman ever considered the appointment of a woman as a Prison
Commissioner? As there are, unfortunately, a good many women prisoners, and as there are many things where a woman would be of some help, will the hon. and gallant Gentleman, when he has an appointment to make, consider offering it to a woman?

Mr. HARDIE: As there is a Bill now before the House to bring Scotland down to the same level as England with regard to prisons, I appeal to the hon. and gallant Gentleman to use his influence to see that Scotland is not brought down to the level of England.

The CHAIRMAN: That question does not arise on this Vote.

Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £473,869, be granted for the said Service," put, and negatived.

Original Question again proposed.

It being after Eleven of the Clock, and, objection being taken to further Proceeding, the CHAIRMAN left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1926, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of parts of the rural districts of Billesdon, Blaby, and Market Harborough,
in the county of Leicester, which was presented on the 17th day of April, 1928, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1926, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of part of the rural district of Skip-ton, in the West Riding of the county of York, which was presented on the 2nd day of April, 1928, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1926, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of parts of the rural districts of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Barrow-upon-Soar, Blaby, Loughborough, and Market Bosworth, in the county of Leicester, which was presented on the 2nd day of April, 1928, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1926, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, in respect of the urban district of Portland, in the county of Dorset, which was presented on the 2nd day of April, 1928, be approved."—[Colonel Ashley.]

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Adjourned accordingly at Six Minutes after Eleven o'Clock.